


The High Way to Hell Presents: Whump-tober

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks



Series: The High Way to Hell [13]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Like, M/M, Whump, canon and non canon, mindless angst, the high way to hell, thwth verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 22,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acareeroutofrobbingbanks/pseuds/acareeroutofrobbingbanks
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. 31 days of whump and angst.





	1. October 3rd - Insomnia

            Joe couldn’t sleep.

            It wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to tell anyone about, not the kind of thing he would tell anyone about, because of everyone in his band, he had had by far the best week.

            Over the past few days, Pete and Patrick had been drugged and kidnapped. Patrick had been drained of blood to the point that he had gone into shock, unconscious and unresponsive for hours. His  _ parents  _ were still at the hospital, and he was still lying through his teeth about how he ended up all ravaged and bloodless. 

           For his part, Pete was there for the drugging, and the kidnapping, and from the sound of it, he had been the one to carry Patrick for miles through the Chicago winter to get to a hospital. He had had to watch all of it, had been the one Joe had found curled up on the plastic hospital chair with a thousand mile stare like he’d come home from Vietnam.

            And Andy… Joe wasn’t sure where to start with Andy. On top of all the guilt over Pete and Patrick and all the strangers in the hotel, he had killed Andrea. While she was still holding their child. Joe couldn’t imagine. Didn’t want to imagine.

            So, in comparison, Joe really hadn’t gone through that much. Yes, the vampire who found him out took a decent chunk out of his neck, but it was healing up just fine. Joe had volunteered to go in, had fought because he knew he could. He didn’t have any right to be traumatized.

            Still, he’d been lying in bed for hours. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the baby girl, screaming and crying and covered in dried blood. He saw Patrick eating Jello in a hospital bed, sitting up and smiling but still looking gaunt and ashen, heard the words “nearing forty-percent blood loss.” He saw the vampire lunge for him, felt the throb in the side of his neck. Smelled phantom smoke.

            Joe stayed awake the first night. The lease wasn’t quite out on their apartment, so they all crashed there, and he rocked Carmilla when she started to fuss even a little bit. 

            He stayed awake the second night, too. His eyesight had gone a little bit blurry, but even if he wanted to sleep, he couldn’t. He visited Patrick in the hospital (already back to complaining and insisting he was fine) and he tried to keep Andy distracted during the day, playing video games or dragging him to record stores or picking out baby furniture for Carmilla. (Not pink, because Andy was firm, even in mourning, on not forcing preconceived gender notions on his newborn child.)

            They kept going, going all day, and when they got back home, Andy passed out, and Joe leaned his head up against the window, the glass cold with November chill. 

            Because he had no reason to be traumatized, he thought.

            He turned the TV off for the night when Nosferatu came on, clutching the mostly-healed side of his neck as though it were still bleeding.

            Nothing bad had even happened to him. 

            Pete reluctantly came back to the apartment at night, and he had nightmares, which, while he got instant coffee from the kitchen, he admitted were about still being soaked in Patrick’s blood, hiding, trying to make themselves smaller.

            He didn’t have a right to cut himself shaving and then start hyperventilating so badly that he fell over.

            Joe stayed awake, because he had no claim to the nightmares that plagued his friends.

            He didn’t sleep, because he was fine.


	2. "No, Stop!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A story from a very bad day in Chile, told from the point of view of someone very much like, but not quite, Joe Trohman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober day four - "No, stop!"

             While Patrick was out burning down buildings and painting them with other Patrick’s blood, Joe was busy at work burning.

            Joe, in truth, had a strange and almost childlike fascination with the way things burned. Maybe it came from other Joe, his counterpart’s, consistent need to have a lighter on him at all times. But Joe liked to think it had nothing to do with the  _ other  _ one. 

            He liked burning for a lot of reasons. He liked the smell of smoke. He liked the way things changed, a deep, chemical change that couldn’t be reversed. Burning always did the kind of damage that couldn’t be repaired. And then, of course, he liked the way it made other Patrick  _ scream _ .

            He was screaming now, arched up from the table in pain. Joe could only see the whites of his eyes, they were rolled so far back. He pressed down on other Patrick’s stomach  and pushed him back down, flat against the table as he finished the word. He finished the ‘e’ with a flourish, and stepped back. The floor was still slick with blood, and other Patrick was shaking with sobs.

            “Do you know what it says?” Joe asked. Other Patrick didn’t seem fully capable of speech, Joe noted. He was shaking his head, and his sobs were especially wet. Sickly yellow snot was flowing out of his nose. Not for the first time that day, Joe wondered if maybe Pete had overdone it with the dose of poison he’d administered.

             “I’ll give you one more chance,” Joe said, feeling uncommonly charitable. Other Patrick let out some choked, gargling version of a scream, and Joe sighed. He went back to the wound, still holding his victim fast against the table. 

            Joe took deep pleasure in the slow etching of the word, savoring the strokes of each letter: “o,” “b,” “s,” “t,” - it was a long word. It was other Joe’s word, too, which made him feel a bit more connected to it. He remembered when other Joe had thought it the first time, as other Patrick snatched the guitar out of his hands in the studio. 

            “ _ Obstinate motherfucker _ ,” other Joe had growled after he left the room, punching a wall. He’d really hated other Patrick in that moment, and it was easy for Joe to channel that energy.

            He finished the “e” yet again, and said “Any luck this time, buddy?”

            Other Patrick looked like he was trying really, pathetically hard to say something. His breaths got shorter with exertion, his chest heaving and his lips half-parted. He was drooling a little, Joe noted with disgust. Or maybe it was bile, he thought. Disgusting either way.

            “P-please,” other Patrick said, barely audible. Joe rolled his eyes.

            “It definitely doesn’t say please, but good try,” he said. He pushed the soldering iron into other Patrick’s skin again, and he screamed. 

            Joe really tried to enjoy the moment as he seared in the word one last time. Pete’s idea - they shouldn’t go past five etchings with cuts or burns. He might not feel it anymore, and besides, they had a lot they wanted to get done in one day. But Joe thought that he wouldn’t have minded going once more, just to make sure this word was really deep. 

            Still, he finished and pulled back, letting the iron hang down at his side.

            “It was mine,” he admitted. “And it says ‘obstinate.’ That’s a synonym for stubborn, just so you know.”

            “I know what it means!” the other Patrick growled. His voice still sounded wet and ragged, but he was still fighting, that was good. They didn’t want him completely broken down, not yet. Joe would’ve loved the pleasure of finishing him off, but… well, he would get his turn. Later.

            “What, not as  _ stupid _ as you seem?” Joe asked, punctuating the question by slapping the matching word, still freshly burning. He screamed again, but a short scream this time.

            Joe spun the soldering iron around in his hands.

            “All-righty,” he said. He grinned down at other Patrick, though his eyes were closed, leaking tears. “Ready for the next one?”

            “No!” he gasped. “No, stop!”

            “Stop?” Joe asked. “Um, no?”

            “Please!” other Patrick said. “Please, please stop!”

            Joe giggled a little. 

            “Aw, Patrick,” he said. A thrill of exhilaration rushed through him as he lifted his hand again. “That’s just not going to happen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's late - I got drunk and watched Moulin Rouge. Enjoy! If there was any confusion, this was from the point of view of the Joe egrigor.


	3. October 5 - Poisoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after "Do the Panic" from season two, Pete deals with the aftermath of being kidnapped by hunters.

            Pete was trying not to look as bad as he felt. This was a difficult task, but he thought he was pretty convincing. He joked and laughed all the way back to the hotel and he smiled even though it made his unhealed mouth split like a scream, the sting of iron still coating his lips like cheap alcohol. But, since he was paying for the room, he got a big suite and flashed the rest of his band a shit-eating grin and said he got the solo bedroom. He dragged his suitcases into the big, king bedroom with a thin TV mounted to the wall, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

            He then promptly vomited in the wastebasket under the bedside table. Even his bile was flecked with dull gray metal filings and lurid red blood. 

            To Pete’s overwhelming relief, the hunters hadn’t actually force-fed him iron. He’d heard stories about fae that had happened to, imagined the sensation of vomiting up sandy, metallic grit, and had to think of something else before he started crying too.

            No, he hadn’t had to eat iron, one small kindness. But he’d had the iron bar in his mouth like a gag for a long time, and no one had seemed to care if minute pieces of it flaked off and got ingested by him, and then the filings that the one vindictive hunter had rubbed into his skin were fine enough that some of them had gone airborne, been inhaled by Pete. He could feel the iron reacting inside his system, burning and scratching and reacting like venom with his blood. 

            Pete curled up on the bed, feeling the blood, hot and rusty tasting, dripping from the freshly split sides of his mouth. He was trembling all over, feeling somehow too hot and too cold at the same time. 

            Every now and then, Pete leaned over the edge of the bed and spat out a little more bile. He hadn’t swallowed much iron, so it wouldn’t take too long to get it out of his system, he hoped. Still he shook, the tremors too much for him to get the blanket over his shoulders. 

            “Hey, Pete?” 

            Pete groaned, half in pain because his whole body was protesting, convulsing, and half because he did not need to see anyone else like this.

            “Pete?”

            “Go away!” Pete groaned. The door opened anyway, and Pete curled in tighter on himself. His eyes felt embarrassingly wet. 

            And then there was one warm hand on his back, rubbing circles, and Pete leaned over and threw up again, mostly blood. He was even more embarrassed to realize that he was slick with sweat, his hair stuck to his face and his shirt soaked through where someone was touching him.

            “Get it all out,” Patrick said, voice low and sure. Pete gagged, his whole body jerking in and then out again.

            “Go away,” Pete said again, a little weaker this time. Patrick shook his head, barely visible out of the corner of Pete’s eyes. Patrick pushed Pete’s hair back, out of his eyes, and then draped the blanket over Pete’s shoulders. The shudders calmed minutely, as Pete got a little bit warmer.

            “I’ve got you, man,” Patrick said. 

            Pete closed his eyes. He was in pain and could hardly breath without gasping or crying, but still, Patrick was there. He would be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, I know Patrick and the egrigors was the obvious option, but I don't usually like the obvious option. Also, Pete!whump? Highly underrated. Let me know if you're liking these or if I'm just flooding your notifications, haha. Also, I know it's supposed to be whump, but I ended it kinda fluffy because I'm a baby about this


	4. October 6 - Betrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy tries to deal with a sudden and intense revelation on the same day his daughter is born.

            Andy didn’t have a lot of experience with babies. He had held a distant cousin before, he’d read the parenting books that Patrick bought for him, but now he had a child that was his. Half his, half the girl who had kidnapped his best friends. 

            Andy rocked Carmilla in the back seat of the cab and tried to figure out how all this had gone so horribly wrong. The baby in his arms made fussy noises, but her eyes stayed shut, like she was upset but too tired to work up a real tantrum.

            “He never trusted you anyway,” Andrea said, one arm outstretched, as though she was going to try and calm Andy. Andy flinched away from her, holding the baby a little tighter to his chest. Andrea made a face.

            “He’s just some dog,” she said. “You and I, and her, we’re special. And you’ll understand eventually. I’m sure of it.”

            “Babe, I love you,” Andy said. “But you sound like a  _ fucking nazi _ .”

            Andrea glared at him, and pointedly cupped her hands over Carmilla’s tiny ears.

            “I know we said we weren’t going to be weird about swearing around our kid,” she said. “But I don’t think we should go out of our way to be crass in front of her.”

            “I thought you were friends with my friends,” Andy said. In truth, he was still in denial, half-expecting her to say she was just kidding and apologize for being so mean. But she was still staring him down.

            “You told me yourself that Joe smells like weed and McDonald’s,” Andrea said with disgust. “He’s not your friend. And I’m  _ sorry  _ about Pete and Patrick, okay? I promise, they’re gonna be fine, they’ll be out in a week, and we can go back to our lives, just pushing the world in the right direction.”

            Carmilla was stirring in Andy’s arms, too tight wedged in between her parents while they fought in terse whispers. Andy tried to pull back and rock her a little, calm her down and get her back to sleep, but Andrea followed his movement like they were magnetized. 

            Andy didn’t want to believe that Andrea could do this to him. The cool girl who went rock climbing for fun and could talk politics with him, the girl who liked all the same movies as him, who fucked the way he did-- how much of it was a lie? Maybe the worst wasn’t even the abstract idea of getting betrayed, but of not knowing how betrayed he was. Did she go out to steak dinners after he kissed her goodnight? Did she despise Star Wars? She had said she didn’t lie about falling in love with him, but how could he know if he actually fell in love with her when he didn’t even know who she was?

            The taxi pulled up in front of the Drake hotel, and Andrea slid out first. She had given birth less than twenty-four hours ago, and she was already walking in heels. The miracle of being a half-vampire. 

            They checked in in silence, her nodding at the clerk in a familiar way that made Andy’s stomach swoop. How big was the operation? 

            The two of them and their baby got into the elevator alone, and Andrea leaned against him, her lips against his ear.

            “I know it seems bad,” she said. “But I’m doing it for the best - for the greater good. And I’m going to earn your trust back.” She pushed a strand of hair behind his ears, her eyes smoldering. “I can start tonight. Give Carm a little sibling.”

            Andy couldn’t help the look of disgust from appearing on his face, but he did feel bad when he saw how hurt Andrea looked. After everything, he felt bad for hurting her feelings.

            “I’ll pass,” he said. But then, grudgingly, “I like the nickname.”

            Carm. It had a nice ring to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm not super sure about this? But I hope it was fun! Thanks for all the sweet comments, they're really encouraging <3


	5. October 7 - Kidnapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe wakes up alone in H.H. Holmes' basement and has to come to terms with being a grown-up.

            The hotel that Joe was in the bowels of was like a living organism. He could hear it, hear the machinations in the basement rumbling like an actual digestive system, hear the wind of the vents like the whole building was breathing, hear the monstrous contraptions ticking in the floors above him like a heartbeat.

            It was easier to think about the sounds he could hear, what information he could take in, rather than focusing on how physically trapped Joe actually was. If he thought about the thick leather straps holding him down, or the possibilities of how he was about to be tortured, he would scream his head off and be of no use to anyone. 

            Even when locked in the dungeon of H.H. Holmes, Joe was nothing if not pragmatic.

            But as much as he pulled at the straps to no avail, and as much as he tried to listen and look and smell and take in some sort of information that would help him escape, he was panicking.

            Joe wasn’t really used to the sensation of being tied up. He wasn’t sure how anyone could get used to it, for that matter. He had briefly had his hands tied when Arma Angelus was hazing him somewhere in Butt-Fucking-Nowhere, Ohio, but there was never a moment in his life where Joe believed that Pete was honestly going to kill him. The violent ghost of a notorious serial killer, on the other hand…

            The truth was that Joe was scared. More scared than he could remember being in his whole life, except for maybe when the van skidded off the road and he  _ knew  _ death was imminent, rather than right now, when he just suspected it was. He was scared and alone and, no matter how much he felt like the most responsible person he knew, he felt really young. There was some stupid, childish part of his brain that wanted his mom to show up and tell H.H. Holmes that he wasn’t allowed to do this, and for her to take Joe home and ground him so that he could do Fall Out Boy stuff another day. He wanted to be safe and sound and not have to think his way out of this.

            But his parents weren’t going to save the day, and frankly, the odds of his band getting him out of this weren’t too likely either. Joe flexed his muscles under the leather straps, closed his eyes, and tried to center himself. He was not going to die here.

            He could rescue himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not the 7th but I saw Fall Out Boy that night and I am do my best


	6. October 8 - Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day in Santiago, everything went wrong. But if people made different decisions, it might have gone differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kind of experimental but bear with me

            In another universe, things went differently. But this is the story of what didn’t happen.

            What didn’t happen was that halfway out the door, Pete got hit with a pang of guilt. Andy felt uneasy for reasons he couldn’t explain. Joe would rather just stay in and Skype with Marie anyway. They stayed in that day, haunting the hotel room, and they were there when the poison’s effects got worse.

            What didn’t happen was that Pete smoothed Patrick’s hair back and felt how blisteringly hot his forehead was, or frown when he saw how feeble Patrick’s aura was getting. 

            But in this world, the world that didn’t happen, Pete called for the guys to see if they could get a thermometer from the front desk, and then half-dragged, half-carried Patrick over to the bed.

            Patrick, for his part, pressed his too-hot forehead to Pete’s chest and whined in the back of his throat. Patrick, who was whiny but usually keen to insist he was  _ fine _ , God, Pete, fuck off, was breathing shallow. 

            “Hurts,” Patrick said. Something else was off with him, but Pete couldn’t put a finger on what. His hand tightened around Pete’s shoulder almost convulsively, and he said, “I’m going to- Pete I’m gonna-” before he threw up again, all over Pete’s shirt.

            Pete had about a second to feel disgusted before he looked down and saw that it was all bile, thin and sort of pink, almost like it was tinted with - but no, people didn’t vomit up blood from food poisoning. And Patrick, for his part, didn’t look chagrined or amused, just kept his eyes slammed shut and shook. 

            Pete set Patrick down on the bed, where Patrick curled up, and Pete smoothed back his hair again, a nervous tick. He felt his hot forehead again, and realized that Patrick should have been slick with sweat, and his skin was dry.

            It was definitely a sign to call 911, or whatever the emergency equivalent was in Chile, but then Andy walked in with a thermometer and a look of paternal concern etched into his face. 

            “Open your mouth, sweetie,” Pete said, and Patrick looked up at him without comprehension. His eyes took too long to focus in on the thermometer in Pete’s hands, but he eventually opened his mouth enough for the metal end of the thermometer. Pete, one hand on Patrick’s fever-hot one, tried to prepare himself for the worst, but still didn’t quite believe the number on the thermometer as it ticked up, quickly past 100, 101, 102, 103…

            104.2

            “Okay,” Pete said. He took measures to keep his voice as calm as possible, because the last thing he needed to do was freak Patrick out more. “Okay. Andy, call an ambulance.”

            Andy glanced at the number, balked, and left the room immediately. Pete leaned in and kissed Patrick and suddenly missed all the sweat. He could smell the bile on his t-shirt and feel the heat radiated off his boyfriend’s skin.

            Patrick curled towards Pete, the pull almost magnetic, and Pete held him in spite of the unnatural fever. He felt his own chest tighten while Patrick whined into Pete’s chest, and he held him very close, with whispers of “baby, it’s okay, it’s gonna be fine.”

            Joe came into the room before the EMTs did, and it was truly a mark of how sick Patrick was that he didn’t sit up and try to pretend to be fine, but instead just buried his face in Pete’s chest. Joe met Pete’s eyes with a look of nothing but concern, and the look Pete shot back could be best described as “tell me about it.” 

            Pete rode in the ambulance with him, flat out ignoring everyone who said they ought to stick with security, because this was  _ Patrick _ . Fans might have seen the leaving the hotel, paparazzi might have snapped pictures, and whatever happened Pete wouldn’t have known. He had tunnel vision, eyes only for his boyfriend. Inside the ambulance, it was absurdly loud, but Pete’s ears could’ve been filled with cotton. He kept holding onto Patrick’s hand, and though Patrick was holding his hand too, his muscles were so weak that if Pete let go they would have slipped apart.

            Sometime after they got to the hospital but before the doctor came in, Pete realized that his hand was slick. He felt Patrick’s forehead and realized that yes, he was sweating again, his temperature minutely cooler than it had been a minute ago.

            The doctors took some precautions to bring the fever down and keep Patrick stable, but he gained lucidity quickly, drinking water on his own and negating the need for rehydration IVs. All in all, scary as it had been, it wasn’t a long hospital stay. Once whatever-it-was was out of Patrick’s system, all he had to do was rehydrate and rest. 

            That night, when Patrick was discharged without a toxicology report, he kissed Pete back, sleepy and exhausted from a day of violent illness, he said “I’m so glad you came back.” And Pete was too.

            But that is just the story of what didn’t happen. 

            And in the version of the story that did happen, Patrick’s fever was brought down minutely by the cold metal table, and he threw up most of the poison in his system. And no one held his hand when the poison got him shaking, and no one brushed the sweat damp hair off of his feverish forehead. No one called an ambulance for him and no one leaned in and whispered “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, baby, I’m right here.” And when the poison and the fever were all the way gone, his temperature down and the shakes calmed, he was in enough pain that he didn’t even notice.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love me som stump whump. I couldn't post october 8th on time because I was at a Decemberists concert and it was amazing.


	7. October 9 - Stranded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy doesn't have a good time with the ocean.

             Andy had never truly appreciated how big the ocean was before. Of course, he knew the ocean was enormous, most of the planet, but knowing something and being entirely surrounded by it was not the same thing. As it was now, he was surrounded. All there was on every side of him was water and glittering sunlight and the distant, flitting thoughts of danger:  _ Glass doesn’t float, right? Where do sharks live, and will they smell our blood?  _

            After a mere few minutes of basking in the beauty that was seeing the goddamn sun again, the novelty wore off, and Andy remembered that direct sunlight wasn’t actually that good of news for him. The sun was boring into his brain through his eyes and he was so fucking thirsty and Pete wouldn’t wake up and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but saltwater waves as far as he could see.

            “Look, I know he’s alive,” Joe said. “But I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

            Because that was really encouraging. Andy was disoriented and his face hurt and all he could smell was salt, but he wasn’t sure if it came from the ocean, or all the shallow cuts on his bandmates from the inward spray of glass, or from the rusty twinge of injuries coming from him.

            Andy liked camping. He liked going out and hiking, exploring, and wandering. Even when he got mixed up, he rarely got truly and deeply lost. If you couldn’t find your way in the forest, there were landmarks - trees and boulders and deer trails, if nothing else. Some way back to civilization. 

            There were no landmarks in the middle of the ocean. There was no way out of this, no out, so far as Andy could see. There was only forward or backward in a thousand different directions, and a slow, painful death of dehydration for him and his whole band. 

            Even after drinking from Patrick, when he saw the vague, blurry outline of land far away, the feeling of being lost didn’t leave Andy. If he was wrong, if he was imagining it, if anything… they would stay lost forever. Get picked up by a fishing boat or die in the ocean, leaving their bloated corpses to get eaten by the fish. 

            Even after they dragged themselves up onto the beach, got swept up in care at the hospital, and were distinctly dry in a hotel room somewhere in Australia, the bone deep fear didn’t leave Andy. When he dreamt, he had uneasy dreams full of glittering waves forever and ever and ever.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short, this prompt was just not happening. I'll be back later today with October 10th! Bruises!


	8. October 10 - Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four vignettes of four boys dealing with bruises in various ways.

            Pete was the sort of guy who picked fights. He didn’t like the fact that he did it, but he could no more stop getting into fights with people than he could stop playing bass, writing poetry, or laughing at funny jokes.

            Usually, though, his bruises came in the form of a purple blotch over one of his eyes from a right hook he was too drunk to dodge, or a a bluish splotch on his thigh from running into an amp.

            Running with crowds of magical creatures, however, meant that he ended up with a lot more injuries.

            After their brief stint on Warped Tour, Pete was covered in bruises. He always thought “black and blue” was a silly phrase when bruises were purple and turned yellow with time, but now he understood that when the bruise was bad enough, the flesh wounded deep enough, it was as though his skin was black and rotted.

            At least, that was what Pete told himself, especially the bruising around the zombie bite. He had to believe that it just looked like that and wasn’t necrosis setting in. Of course, telling himself that only worked for so long before he worked himself into an anxiety attack.

            Part of it, he thought, even as he tried to steady his breathing, was how covered he was in bruises. From the shaking van to stumbling on the street to the enormous bite marks that were still healing on his shoulder, he was actually black and blue all over. He was tender to the touch everywhere, and for as much as the bruises made him feel ill, he couldn’t stop prodding them, watching as his skin turned white with pressure and then fade back into dark, dark blue.

            Pete was starting to work himself into a real panic, feeling the tenderness of his skin and wondering if all the discoloration on his skin was like when peaches bruised, that if he had the balls to press down harder he’d feel that the muscle and tissue beneath had gone soft and the older he got the more he would crumble, unhealing as a fruit ripped off the vine.

            Before his spiral of thought could carry him too deep into a frenzy, a pair of balled up socks hit him in the center of his chest. Pete looked up, and Joe was leaning on the door frame.

            “Hey,” he said. “We’re going down to the diner. You wanna come?”

            Pete probably wasn’t rotting from the outside in, he decided. And he really wanted a chocolate milkshake. So he nodded, and Joe helped him up, and they all walked down the road together, slow enough that Pete could keep up with them even though his legs shook.

 

            Andy’s skin was hard to bruise. It wasn’t made of some weird, rock-like material like vampire skin was in novels and horror comics, but it was tougher than human skin. He’d had enough scrapes- or, what should have been scrapes - on the playground to know that what could leave a human kid a mess of road-burnt skin and blood and snot would barely leave Andy winded.

            But obviously, he could be hurt. Emotionally and physically. He got used to his superpowers, so that when he was hurt, it was both shocking and distressing.

            They left the diner behind, Andy trying to forget the mess of gore in the kitchen, the sight of Patrick strung upside down and the lipless, ravenous face of the wendigo, but some things were impossible to forget, such as the bruises all over the side of his body. He stood in the bathroom of the studio and poked the purple and yellow splotches all up the side of his body. They didn’t hurt when he brushed them, but if he poked hard, they ached a little sharper and more tender than the ache after a workout.

            “Admiring yourself?” Patrick asked. Andy pulled his shirt back down and shook his head. He felt a little pang at the scabs on Patrick’s neck, made by his teeth, but figured they were a little past those apologies.

            “No, just… bruises are kinda weird, huh?” he said. Patrick squinted at him.

            “I guess?” he said. He frowned. “You’ve - you’ve had bruises before, right?”

            Andy shrugged.

            “Oh, jesus fuck,” Patrick said. “Yeah, they’re kinda weird. You doing okay?”

            “You’re the one who got- got all fucked up yesterday,” Andy said. Patrick shrugged.

            “Yeah. Still,” he gave Andy an awkward sort of side hug. “Don’t mess with them, or they’ll never heal.”

            He left Andy alone, and Andy only ran his fingers lightly over the patches bruises once more before he left the room as well.

 

            Joe’s back hadn’t been in fantastic shape anyway. He’d lifted a lot of heavy objects, hit a barricade at exactly the wrong angle, and had his spine stretched by the ghost of a former serial killer. So, when Not Patrick grabbed him by the loose skin on the back of his neck and hurled him at a very solid wall, Joe really wished that his first instinct would have been to face the collision rather than absorb the impact in his spine.

            Somewhere in between slamming into the side of the venue and hitting the hard asphalt a good two dozen feet down, he must have turned back into a human. He landed in a crumple of hands and knees and bloody scrapes that wouldn’t have been so bad, were he still a wolf. And once he hit the ground, he didn’t move for a while. He wasn’t sure how long he laid there exactly. He only knew that when he had been launched across the parking lot, Pete and Patrick and Dirty were all still standing, and when he dragged himself to his feet, Dirty was nowhere to be seen, and Pete and Patrick were on the ground.

            Joe tried to run forward, to help, but his legs did little to hold him up, and he fell again. He was distinctly aware of the fact that everything hurt. He had enough of his wits about him to drag himself over to his clothes and pull on pants before letting himself fall back onto his back.

            It took a few hours for the bruises to bloom, but when they did, he was covered. If he pushed his hair aside, his neck looked like the leftover of a bad dye job, and the further down his back he got, the worse it got.

            But that was fine, because he had long hair and t-shirts and no one had to know that he was sleeping on his stomach because of how tender his whole back was. The strap on his guitar during shows bit into his back like a dull knife, and sitting down for acoustic anything was pretty hit or miss, but it would heal up fine on its own.

            No need to worry anyone else over it.

 

            Patrick had quite enough to be worrying about without all the bruises.

            It was the only injury he would admit was a little his fault, though. The egrigors had been cutting and burning him, hitting him with too many volts of electricity and force feeding him poison, sure, but they hadn’t been hitting him until he provoked them. At the time, making mean jokes at their expense seemed the best way to fight back while he was strapped to that god-forsaken table. But after, it had just seemed stupid.

            The day after the egrigors, after all the torture, Patrick moved through in a stupor. The world was hazy from the fourteen straight hours of sleep he’d gotten mixed with high grade painkillers and, ironically, the fog of pain that was still a little overwhelming. He walked into the main section of the hotel room, where the kitchenette and the couch and TV were, but he didn’t participate in the conversation or watch the TV. He just fell into the chair in the far end of the room and tried to find an angle at which he could breathe without it causing immense amounts of pain.

            Because even if the cuts would stop stinging and the burns would stop aching with heat, and his ankle and wrist and ribs would all stop throbbing, every inch of his skin was tender. Not Pete had beaten him like a punching bag when he realized Patrick couldn’t be killed. Patrick hadn’t really felt that over everything else while it was happening, but when he caught sight of himself in the mirror during a bandage change, it was hard to miss the fact that all the space between the letters carved on his skin was rapidly purpling.

            Even the pull of the bandages made him ache like he was still getting punched. Patrick tried not to flinch when Pete wrapped his wounds, but he couldn’t hold in every whimper. The pain of the bruises getting pushed down by the cloth was only a little bit worse than the look on Pete’s face while he applied the bandages, so Patrick tried to close his eyes and keep his face neutral.

            It was a little better by the time they got a plane back home, but his face still looked like meat that was starting to go bad. He was covered in the kind of bruises so dark and enormous that strangers stared at him like he was dangerous. But Patrick, for the first time in years, didn’t feel even remotely dangerous. He felt like an injured animal, locked up in the back of a cage, too tired to swipe at people poking and prodding him.

            Tired was a good overall descriptor. He felt the kind of pain that was absolutely tied to exhaustion. In that yes, sitting down or moving too fast or having someone so much as touch him hurt, but it hurt in a way that left him more bored and tired than howling.

            Sometime during their long flight, Pete stroked the side of Patrick’s face with his hand. It was the lightest touch possible, but still Patrick flinched.

            “Sorry,” Pete whispered, barely audible. Better that way, because Patrick probably couldn’t handle the sound of his voice just then. “Does it hurt?”

            That was a stupid question, and Pete seemed to realize it was.

            “You know, all that bruising… you’re not as pale as usual,” he said. He was trying to tease Patrick, but it was a weak joke, and the word “pale” seared against his skin. Patrick could still feel the skin on his face throbbing lightly, dark and shadowy from Not Pete slamming his fists into him over and over again. Looking just like Pete, sounding just like him, fuck, he even smelled like Pete’s favorite brand of overpriced cologne.

            Patrick couldn’t spend the rest of his life associating Pete’s voice with that kind of pain.

            He took Pete’s hand before Pete could turn away and pretend he hadn’t said anything, and he held Pete’s hand up to his cheek. Still sensitive, it didn’t exactly feel good, but it didn’t hurt so long as Patrick was controlling the pressure.

            “I still look better than you,” Patrick whispered. He didn’t mean it even remotely, but Pete smiled anyway.

            “You’ve always been the hot one,” Pete murmured back. Patrick leaned his bruised face into the knuckles of Pete’s hand, harder now, painful, but somehow not bad. These were the same knuckles, he mused, (unless Pete had weird self-esteem issues with his hands) that had given him the bruises in the first place. He wondered if he could match Pete’s hands up to the bruises, and giggled a little. Inane. Nonsensical. There would be a whole new list of words if the egrigors caught him again.

            It felt healing, in a stupid way that Patrick couldn’t explain. He held Pete’s hand against his injuries. And it hurt until it stopped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Patrick is my favorite for whump but nobody complains so... idk, I'm still sorry his section is the longest. And sorry if this one is weird? I just couldn't pick what to do. Tomorrow is hypothermia!


	9. October 11 - Hypothermia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a brief vivisection by some freshwater mermaids, Patrick does not fare well against the cold.

            Chicago was a cold city. They called it the Windy City for a reason, because even in the soupy heat of summer, all it took was the wind picking up to make you need a hoodie again. And that was in the heat of summer. In March, when it was still basically winter, Chicago was downright frigid.

            This was bad news if you were Fall Out Boy, and you were trying to get Patrick to a hospital after he’d been pulled out of Lake Michigan. Pete was glued to Jeanae’s side, but the rest of the band was keeping an eye on Patrick, who was both losing blood and very, very cold.

            Patrick wasn’t sure, but he thought that Joe and Andy were getting seriously frightened. From the big gash on his chest to how cold he had been, the spasms in his muscles, there was a lot to be afraid of. And yet, they shouldn’t be that scared. Patrick didn’t even feel that cold.

            “I think I’m okay,” Patrick said. “You guys should worry about Jeanae. I’m not even that cold anymore.”

            Granted, his voice came out a little garbled, kind of like he was drunk, but he wasn’t sure why. Also, he was having a little bit of difficulty moving his extremities.

            “Patrick,” Joe said. “Your lips are blue.”

            “Are they?” Patrick said. “I feel warm.”

            “Hey, Andy, how we doing with that taxi?” Joe asked. He sounded panicked, and Patrick wanted to tell him not to panic, he was fine. He felt warmer than he had all day. Joe was pretty much holding him up, and Patrick leaned on him, pressing his cheek into Joe’s neck. He realized that Joe’s skin felt flame hot, but kind of nice. The damp clothes didn’t feel that bad, though. In fact, they felt a little constricting.

            “’M hot,” Patrick said. “S’too hot in here.”

            “Patrick, baby,” Anna said, one hand on his shoulder. “It’s freezing out.” She draped her coat around his shoulders, but Patrick whined. It was all too hot, and he just wanted this minor paralysis to leave him alone, and as soon as he could move properly again, he would be fine.

            “TAXI!” Andy shouted.

            “They can’t hear you!” Joe snapped back. Patrick started slipping as his legs refused to hold him anymore, but Joe and Anna held him up.

            Patrick caught sight of himself in an oily reflection on the road. Sure enough, his skin had taken on a bluish tinge, and where his hair hung limp and damp, ice crystals starting to form between the strands.

            “I feel really hot,” Patrick repeated, or he tried to, and instead said “feel hot,” and finally let himself be bundled up in other people’s jackets, because he wasn’t hot, wasn’t hot at all. In fact, he was pretty sure he was freezing to death.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed!!!


	10. October 12 - Electrocution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete has incredible powers - incredible powers that he can't control.

            Everything was falling apart. Pete wasn’t even sure what he was seeing, where he was, but it was dark and shadowy and the world was full of screaming. And then he slid, and realized the ground was covered in silver pellets, the screaming came from all the monsters around them. The arena, he thought, they were in the arena.

            And then he heard Patrick screaming, and the whole world stopped. It wasn’t as though everyone had stopped shouting, it wasn’t a panic response, there was simply tunnel vision and nothing left in the world but Patrick, and he was in pain or in danger or afraid, and Pete was supposed to be protecting him.

            Pete had felt inadequate plenty of times before. When he was in the Drake, Patrick begging to go home, when Joe shook his head and said he didn’t want to be an alpha, wasn’t ready, when Andy was up late at night and needed Pete’s help changing a diaper, when tiny, 17 year old Brendon Urie was chained to a radiator not five feet from Pete. A dozen other times, when Pete was there, when he should have been able to help and could just look on helplessly.

            This time was different. It was too much. He could feel a pull in the bottom of his stomach, so low and so deep. It pulled upwards from his gut and ran through him like a second spine, pure energy emanating from him, and he screamed.

            Lightning streamed down from the ceiling, from the sky, but it was really coming from some core deep down inside Pete. He could feel it, every inch of him supercharged. He could feel electricity pouring from him, part of him, surrounding him. Like a burst dam, or an exploding soda can, it was so much, but so right. The natural order of things, like he’d been waiting his whole life for it.

            It felt so good and right, in fact, that he almost didn’t realize that everything had gone wrong. The electricity flowing through him started to hurt, static shock all over him and then overwhelming him, sparks of pain flowing up and down his body. He tried to raise his voice, to call back the scream that had risen up out of him, but his voice had abandoned him.

            As the lightning fizzled out and died away, the brightness fading from the room, Pete’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark and he saw that the arena was strewn with bodies. No one was standing, everyone was sprawled on the dirt, the blood, and the silver. Pete stepped forward to look at the bodies, all the while still feeling the electricity crackling through him.

            For some reason, most of the bodies were faceless - or, they had faces, but Pete couldn’t focus on them, couldn’t quite see them properly. They weren’t moving, but he felt like they weren’t sleeping, like they were…

            Pete knelt down next to one of the bodies and focused hard on the face, only to see Brendon’s wide brown eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. Electricity crackled through Pete’s palms as he jumped back. Foam was still dribbling out of Brendon’s mouth. Pete staggered back, another jolt of electricity running through him. His hand struck another form behind him, and when he turned he saw Andy’s body, the ends of his hair blackened and singed.

            The little All Time Low kids. Gabe. Joe. Patrick. He was surrounded by corpses, electrocuted by the lightning that came from inside him.

            Pete woke up not screaming, but gasping for breath, and immediately pulled his hands into his chest, feeling the slight spark of static electricity come from them. More than a slight spark, actually. He pressed his hands against the blanket, and some of the awful electricity running through him eased, no longer burning him with almost cold intensity all through his veins. He let out a shaky breath, rolled over, and refrained from checking on Patrick in the next room over.

            Lightning, he decided, was not the sort of Power he was happy to have.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy with this one but I didn't want to do three Patrick's in a row and interestingly, electrocution is one of the few things on the whump list that hasn't actually happened to anyone in this story. Sorry if the dreamscape thing was a bit of a cop out, but I promise you guys will like tomorrow <3


	11. October 13 - "Stay"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes even pack leaders have to lean on their friends.

Joe was wiped. He felt like all the air had been vacuumed out of his body and someone had taken a meat tenderizer to all his muscles. The adrenaline-mixed-with-meth sensation of being the pack leader of two million was gone, replaced with an empty, boneless feeling for which Joe had no name.

            No, actually, he could think of a name for it. Shitty. He felt like shit.

            But, with Chicago having just kissed (???!!) Patrick goodbye and disappeared, Patrick was obviously dealing with his own issues, and Pete was, predictably, following him like a lost puppy. Joe didn’t exactly blame them for being too busy to notice him, because he could feel the intensity of Patrick’s emotions through the weak bond that remained, but it still stung a little.

            Summoning up the last of his strength, he severed the pack bond with each member of Panic! at the Disco and shooed them off.

Joe and Andy had walked almost all the way down to the main road to catch taxis of their own when Joe collapsed, his legs giving out beneath him. Joe had the faint and strange sensation of arms catching his back, just a little too hard to be comforting. Then bursts of light appeared across his vision.

            He came to only moments later, the traffic of the city still blaring in the background and Andy staring down at his face with paternal concern.

            “We’re not flying home today,” Andy said. Joe groaned, but Andy pulled him up, slinging Joe’s arm over his shoulders. Joe groaned, but stumbled after Andy anyway, muttering under his breath the whole time.

            Andy walked Joe to the taxi, and then to the hotel room he had booked for the night. Joe tried to insist that it wasn’t necessary, but Andy wasn’t having it. He gave Joe a stern look until Joe reclined on the bed - not quite laying down, but relaxed.

            Relaxing felt better. And then he did lean all the way back, because his head hurt. And he closed his eyes a little, only opening them again when Andy pressed a cold glass of water into his hands.

            “Drink,” Andy said. Joe was too exhausted to disobey, so he drank it down quickly. He shivered a little, but climbed under the covers on his own before Andy could tuck him in or something equally embarrassing.

            He never imagined he could feel so drained. He was shivering, like he was recovering from a bad cold. He sort of expected Andy to just leave, but he climbed onto the bed next to Joe and turned on the TV. The Packers were playing, but Joe had sort of come to the conclusion that a Packers’ game started whenever Andy got in range of a TV he could watch. Joe didn’t really give a damn about Green Bay, but the up-and-down cadence of the announcer’s voice was weirdly soothing, and his eyes started drifting shut without Joe’s executive approval.

            Joe was nearly asleep, the light slanting through the window a dull shade of gold and the football game over, when he felt the bed dip next to him as Andy stood up. He was walking away when Joe worked up an incoherent grumble.

            “You okay, dude?” Andy whispered back at the noise.

            “Mm!” Joe protested. “Stay.”

            He couldn’t be sure, given the dim quality of light in the room, but he thought Andy smiled at him in the semidarkness.

            “Is that an order?” he asked.

            Joe was too tired to respond, but Andy got back on the bed, flipped to another channel that sounded suspiciously like a play-by-play analysis of the Packers game they just watched. Joe wriggled a little closer to Andy, who was shockingly warm for a vampire, and promptly fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be so real I saw the title of this prompt and was so sure I was going to write a peterick and then... then I didn't. I guess this is more fluff than whump but it is legit all that came organically, so... hope you liked it. Some days I kinda wish I shipped trohley but I high-key friendship-ship them.


	12. October 14 - Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of bad things happened to Pete Wentz in high school. He just doesn't talk about it, for various reasons.

_When Pete was very little, before his little siblings were even toddling around regularly, his parents took him to an Easter Sunday service with his grandparents. The church was big and beautiful, and though the bells hurt Pete’s ears at first, they were sort of pretty when he got used to them._

_But sometime around the middle of the service, the priest lifted a big metal wand and shook water into the crowd. When the droplets hit Pete’s skin, they started sizzling, and Pete screamed._

_Dale convinced the church that it was a tantrum, and she never brought Pete to church again. But Pete had snuck downstairs while his parents watched The Omen. He knew what it really meant, when the Holy Water burned him like hot oil. He was-_

            “-damned,” the pimply hunter said, smug. Pete was tied up somewhere dark, thick iron chains wrapped around his wrists that scalded him if he moved. Two men, barely older than Pete, were sitting in front of them. The gangly, pimply one looked self-righteous, and the pudgy boy looked apprehensive.

            “Still doesn’t seem right to hurt him,” the one hunter said. “I mean, he’s just a kid.”

            “He ain’t just a kid,” the other one said. “He’s demon spawn, like I keep telling you. Evil. Don’t believe me? Watch this shit.”

            He pulled a flask sized bottle of Holy Water out of his bag, and Pete shouted into his gag, pulling back and wriggling to try and get away from them. Not that it did any good.

            The hunter splashed Holy Water into Pete’s face and he screamed, his mouth aching around the gag while the skin on his face burned. He wanted to go _home_ , to finish his trig homework and maybe jerk off to the thought of Chrissy from his chemistry class. He didn’t act like he was damned, but he could hardly saw that with the acid of Holy Water dripping into his mouth, self-igniting gasoline.

            “Holy Water burns him,” one of them said, what did it matter which one? More water was flicked into his face and he screamed again, this time coming out half a sob.

            “How do we keep him?”

            “He’s already tied up in iron,” God, yes, he was, he could feel the metal cutting into his wrists, eating away at his skin, one of his hands already growing slick with blood. “But we ought to take extra precautions to make sure he doesn’t try any of his fae tricks.”

            Pete didn’t have any fae tricks. He had an expensive cell phone in his back pocket that he couldn’t reach, but no tricks. Still, they threw a towel over his head so that he couldn’t see, and pulled him down, tying him a little tighter so he couldn’t thrash and shake the towel off. Pete shouted into his gag, but nobody who could help heard him. He didn’t like not being able to see, and he really didn’t like the possibilities of what they could do without him looking.

            Then, through the cloth, Pete felt the drop of wetness. It was just damp on the towel, but it still seared against Pete’s skin. Another drop, and the burning sensation grew. Pete’s breathing got labored, because no, no way, he didn’t really believe this was happening.

            Another drop landed on the towel, right over Pete’s forehead, and Pete’s skin started to burn in earnest as the towel soaked up the fluid.

            Pete shook his head, but something was anchoring the towel down on either side of him. The water dripped down, soaking the towel and enveloping him in Holy Water. Like getting water boarded in acid, his whole head was burning, boiling and wet and impossible to breathe. All the while, even as he stopped screaming, the water steadily drip drip dripped onto his head.

            Pete wasn’t sure when he got pulled out. He didn’t remember getting rescued, only being curled up on the couch in his living room, his parents screaming in the kitchen.

            “Not contacting that _thing_ when he’s the reason our son is-”

            “I want those bastards to suffer!”

            Pete had never heard his mom scream like that before, but he was too exhausted and burnt out - in all senses of the word - to make sense of what they were saying.

            Much later that night - he thought it was the same awful, endless night - a velvety smooth voice that Pete only ever heard in his nightmares, bad dreams about mirrors, was speaking.

            “I can make sure he doesn’t remember this experience,” the voice said. “It’s the least I can do, as your oh-so-charming husband says.”

            “Will that be… better?”

            “I can’t read the future. But if I do, you must be sure to warn him about hunters. It could have been much worse.”

            Pete was still shaking as he sank into uneasy sleep, still quaking in fear at the thought of the eager faces of the hunters. Still recalling the overwhelming sensation of burning, the memory of which still pricked at his raw skin.

            If his face looked a little red in school the next day, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another kind of experimental one? But this was really fun, and I'm gonna call it technically cannon, though I wouldn't read in too deep - not beyond character dynamics, anyway.


	13. October 15 - Manhandling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy drinks Patrick's blood. Joe isn't having that.

            The taste of Patrick’s blood was still coating Andy’s mouth, luscious and rich, when Joe body-slammed him onto the snowy pavement. 

            It wasn’t like Andy had never been in a fight before, but usually he avoided fights because firstly, he was way stronger than any human he come up against, so it wouldn’t be fair and he could get caught as abnormally, and secondly, because he didn’t like fighting. He was mild-mannered and soft spoken, and sure, he wouldn’t take shit, but he didn’t go out of his way to stir up trouble the way Pete did. 

            But this wasn’t some drunk human he was pulling off of Pete. This was something powerful, powerful enough to pin Andy’s wrists to the ground and drive his knee into Andy’s chest. A werewolf.

            Andy’s head slammed against the ground, his vision sparking with white lights, and Joe snarled at him, looking positively canine. His wrists were held fast against the cement and Andy realized that he was overpowered, physically unable to fight back for the first time in his life. As he felt Joe’s nails sharp against his skin, realized the threat of transformation, the blood in his mouth felt hot and damning. Andy tensed his muscles, but there was little he could do but wait.

            Long after they got Patrick safe inside, after Andy had bought sugary food for him and they were all speaking to each other again, he still felt the echo of Joe’s fingers closed in on his arms, the knee crushing the air out of his chest. He could still hear the furious words in every glare Joe sent his way. 

_             Sick fuck _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short it was just not happening today BUT I did a lot of work on the main chapter so we're that much closer to that coming out!


	14. October 16 - Bedridden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick can't stand up, walk around, or do anything at all. But he also can't speak to his boyfriend. Pete doesn't believe in no-win scenarios.

            Patrick couldn’t do much but stare at the ceiling. He could, of course, get turned on his side and stare at the wall, or the closed curtain of the window, but that was hardly an improvement.

            The injuries were worst on his back, there was no doubt about that. The phrase “electric screwdriver” was whispered back and forth around the suite in horror, throbbing shallowly in between his shoulders. Even though Patrick knew it was the worst, it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the burns, and for that matter, didn’t hurt that much in general. Maybe it was because Patrick was high as he’d ever been on painkillers, but he suspected it was nerve damage.

            The point being, there was no pleasant way for him to lay down, but his back was as good as any. And even with all the painkillers in his bloodstream, his ankle still throbbed, as did his ribs, and he was to keep off his feet. Which wouldn’t have been so bad under normal circumstances, but circumstances weren’t normal.

            Patrick was bored out of his mind. He had his laptop, but he wasn’t mentally present enough to focus on music, and didn’t have any movies on his computer that would keep him occupied. The one book Pete had brought was _On the Road_ , which Patrick wasn’t even going to try and attempt. The shows on TV were all in Spanish. And, worst of all, he couldn’t exactly talk to his band to pass the time.

            It wasn’t impossible to talk to them. If he kept his eyes on theirs, so he could see the whites and the irises, if he focused on that, he was mostly fine, even if the mere sound of their voices made his heartbeat quicken. But he was fuzzy, fuzzy with medication and too much sleep. And if he zoned out for even a moment, Joe or Pete’s voice could send him into a small panic attack.

            They made this discovery the hard way, when a little while after breakfast, Pete tried to open a conversation with “Hey baby” while Patrick wasn’t facing him and Patrick had screamed.

            _Screamed_. Like he was getting murdered. Someone called the front desk. Patrick was so miserable that he almost wished he were still getting tortured.

            And he had to keep preoccupied somehow. Whenever his mind drifted, it went straight to the words, to thinking about how one of the “fat”s was definitely Pete’s and was that before or after they got together? Did Joe still think he was weak? How many of them were thought in anger and how many of them were consistently in his bandmate’s heads? He couldn’t bear to keep thinking about it.

            Patrick periodically opened and closed his laptop. There wasn’t much he could focus on, but he occasionally opened up a game of minesweeper, closing it again before he won.

            But once, when he opened it, he saw a little AIM notification at the bottom of his screen. Patrick opened it, not sure he had given out his AIM username to much of anyone.

 

15:34:17 XxdeCayDancexX: hey there. anyone tell u that u look cute when ur pouting

 

            Patrick looked up. Pete was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, like he had been for most of the day. Also on his laptop.

 

15:35:02 psteezy: That’s a lame line. Also, did you change my username on here?

 

            Pete looked up and smiled at him. He stuck out his tongue, and Patrick laughed, a really quiet laugh, but still there.

 

15:35:31 XxdeCayDancexX: ur a lame line.

15:35:46 XxdeCayDancexX: no wait im sorry i take it back ur still cute

 

            “This is you, right?” Patrick asked out loud, pointed at the laptop. Jesus, but his voice was ruined. Pete waited a minute after they had been looking each other in the eyes before nodding.

            “It’s me,” he said, and Patrick only flinched a little. Patrick had done fine the first night, but he was still so pumped on adrenaline, still half-convinced he hadn’t actually gotten out. His brain was useless. He was much more scared now that he was safe.

 

15:36:28 psteezy: so why are we on Aol Instant Messenger?

15:36:52 XxdeCayDancexX: missed ur voice

 

            Patrick winced.

 

15:38:01 psteezy: You can’t hear me talking here.

15:38:20 XxdeCayDancexX: nah, i can still hear your voice like this.

15:38:49 XxdeCayDancexX: so since we’re trapped in a hotel room again, wanna play 20qs?

 

            Patrick wiped at needlessly scratchy eyes. He gave Pete a theatrical sigh across the room, but he couldn’t think of a time he’d been further from exasperation.

 

15:39:15 psteezy: Sure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if I fucked up AIM, as I never actually had one. Ummmm, I think I had other things to say about this lil whump, but I can recall them, so I hope you enjoyed! October 17th coming soon, lol


	15. October 17 - Drugged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compulsion wine is a nasty beast, and stronger when the adrenaline fades.

            The thing about compulsion wine was that it didn’t wear off all at once. Much like regular wine, it had after effects.

            For example, it was so cold out that the pain in Patrick’s fingers had melted to numbness an hour ago, but he was still spinning, catching icy raindrops on his tongue.

            Because, hey, they lived! They defeated the faeries! And saved Pete from enslavement! Or something. Patrick was a little unclear. He felt beautifully out of focus, like getting blackout drunk but with the thought that he was probably going to remember all of this in the morning. Everything tasted sweet in his mouth, from the freezing water to the fry (or chip! They were in England, so they must be chips!) that Patrick had grabbed out of the paper bag a stranger had left on a table. He felt high and beautiful and in love with the whole wide world.

            “JOE!” Patrick shouted. He threw his arms around Joe’s neck and clung to him. “Joe Joe Joey Joe, I love you!”

            “Patrick, get off me,” Joe said. He was sobering up faster than Patrick was, and Patrick felt bad for him. He didn’t get to feel good anymore.

            “Joe, you’re sooooo pretty,” Patrick said. “You’re, like, the prettiest boy in the world.” He hopped up on the balls of his feet and leaned over, lips puckered. He pressed a kiss to the bottom of Joe’s jaw before Joe knocked him aside.

            Like he was flying!

            Patrick made no attempt to right himself, and instead let himself spin round and round, tilting on his own axis like a planet knocked off course, all the stars spinning wildly above him.

            He landed elbow-first in the gutter with a crack, fireworks of sound and blood resonating all the way up his arm. A spiderweb of blood bloomed across his elbow, vibrant and crimson against his paper white skin. It was running down his arm fast, droplets falling to the dark pavement below, liquid rubies.

            “Pretty,” Patrick said. His head was throbbing.

            “Patrick!” Andy put his hands on Patrick’s arms - warm, strong hands, not how Patrick pictured a vampire at all. “Jesus, are you okay?”

            “YES!” Patrick screamed. He felt okay, more than okay, alive, alive with the volume turned up to eleven.

            “Like in Spinal Tap,” Patrick said, his lips against Joe’s ear rather suddenly.

            “I love Spinal Tap!” Joe shouted. “Andy, don’t be like a Spinal Tap drummer, yeah?”

            “YEAH!” Patrick almost wanted to kiss Joe, but he didn’t. He was too high and happy to know why he wanted to or even why he decided not to.

            “We’ve got to move faster,” Andy said. “They’re going to catch us if we go slower.”

            “Yeah!” Joe said. He wasn’t shouting, but he was smiling. “We can run!”

            Running kind of hurt Patrick, but he had fun anyway. He ran and laughed and watched as the streetlights bloomed like fire flowers, and he was still giggling when he collapsed, cold and wet and exhausted, into his tiny bed that night.

            Morning, however, came worse than a hangover. Patrick’s mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and he immediately leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited up a bright crimson sludge.

            His head was pounding, the lights too bright and the sound of the street outside too loud. Andy was looking down him, a little pitying.

            “You look rough,” he said.

            “I feel worse,” Patrick said. His lips were cracked, like he’d been dehydrated for days rather than hours.

            “Should’ve been straightedge,” Andy said. Patrick leaned back without even the energy to say “Fuck you.” Wine didn’t get him this drunk, except apparently magic wine did. He curled up under the scratchy covers, because whenever he tried to move the world swooped around him. But this was not to last, because after mere minutes of this, Andy was shaking his shoulder, telling him he needed to get up and ready.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for two patrick chapters in a row, but really, who among you minds? Also, this is a little joetrick heavy because, idk, i love joetrick, and some days i think about a oneshot of thwth but joetrick, idk if it's just me. Also also, this is high key based off the ecstasy scene in sharp objects, and I hope i did it justice. Thanks for reading!


	16. October 18 - Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick gets whisked away to get Pete's attention - by an unlikely kidnapper.

            Patrick didn't even like horror movies, was the worst part. The only reason he knew he was in a bad remake of The Evil Dead was because Pete made him watch The Evil Dead. And The Evil Dead 2. Patrick didn’t want to watch a b-list horror movie most famous for girls getting raped by tree roots, and yet here he was, not faring that much better than the girls in the movie.

            The branch had come out of nowhere. Patrick just felt something thick and hard and cold hit him across the stomach, like the metal bar of a concert barrier catching under his ribs and knocking the wind out of him. It would have knocked him over, but it kept pulling, dragging him backwards through the snow. With all the wind howling and the snow flying in every direction, Patrick couldn’t even see Pete and the car. There was nothing, nothing visible but the flurry of white all around him. And, of course, the sense of something compressing his stomach, rough and thick.

            While Patrick was dragged through the snow, too dazed to look and see what had a hold of him, he thought that this couldn’t possibly get worse, as the whatever-it-was suddenly yanked upwards, so fast that Patrick was dragged up with it. The thing seemed to be curving around Patrick’s body. As Patrick looked down to see the snow-blanketed ground disappearing beneath him, he also saw a thick, rough tree branch wrapped around his stomach.

            A _tree branch_.

            Patrick finally screamed, the sound breathy and catching in his throat, too airless to be louder. His coat was riding up, the bark starting to dig into his skin. As he bled onto the tree, Patrick thoughts were largely incoherent, with an occasional “Fucking Pete” or “fucking Evil Dead bullshit.”

            Patrick sucked in his breath and started screaming, knowing that people were outside, that someone had to hear him. And the branch pulled him higher, up until he was at a height he really didn’t want to drop from, and he stopped thrashing, somewhat. Gravity was working against him and the evil, magic tree, though, because the branch had to hold him very, very tight for him not to continue to slip, tight enough that he could feel the hot seep of his blood against the branch.

            Patrick kept screaming, in the hopes that Pete or anyone would hear him.

            But he couldn’t see the tree behind him, no could he possibly know that he specifically had been singled out as a weapon to use against the fae, as a warning to hurt the faerie and make it leave their woods. He couldn’t know that they had singled him out as Pete’s human.

            It wasn’t as though trees could talk, or anything silly like that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for 3 patrick chapters in a row it be like that sometimes. I'm trying to catch up and doing my best <3 happy whumptober


	17. October 19 - Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe has to stay awake to protect his band from monsters. His band has to wake up to protect him from himself.

           Joe hadn’t slept in a while.

            For some dubiously kind reason (that Joe suspected had a lot to do with saving face after making them drive all over the ice-slick roads of Pennsylvania in a blizzard) the label had paid for Fall Out Boy to stay in a hotel for the night, and even got someone to drive them back home. So for the second night in a row, Joe was staying in a kinda-decent hotel with lots of middle Americans who were, for some indescernible reason, on a road trip in January.

            And, for the second night in a row, Joe couldn’t sleep.

            He’d been up so long driving, from sunrise two days ago to right then, and he saw flashes of light whenever he blinked, like his eyes were signalling to him that they planned on giving up soon, but he dared not fall asleep. Not after the crackling, electric voice of the Green Man echoing in his ears, not when danger could still be out there.

            Pete and Patrick, in spite of sleeping through most of the night, almost immediately collapsed into bed with one another. Much as Patrick complained about sharing a bed with Pete, the two of them looked comfortable then, all curled up under the comforter.

            “I’m thinking I might go swim in the hotel pool,” Andy said, very tentative. “Do you wanna come?”

            In the other bed, chin resting on his knees and his knees pulled up to his chest, Joe shook his head, just slightly.

            He forgot to say thanks for the invitation until after Andy had already left.

            The bed was all but begging him to go to sleep. The tv was off, but Joe could hear people talking in the next room. The sound of distant chattering was lulling him to sleep, but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t. He had to stay up, had to stay vigilant in case the thing came back.

            Joe splashed cold water onto his face and dabbed it on the insides of his wrists to shake him back into wakefulness. He wasn’t going to ask Andy to stay, because he knew it was probably stupid. The thing had said the danger was over, but.

            But Joe didn’t trust the monster, and who else was going to keep Pete and Patrick safe? Who was going to keep any of them safe? If Joe wasn’t ready then who would be? IF it came back, IF something attacked. IF.

            When Andy came back, Joe was shivering a little, staring at the patterns that were swirling and melting on the wall. The whole hotel room was swaying as though on a boat.

            Joe could hear but not quite comprehend Andy talking to someone, not realizing for far too long that he was asking Pete if he knew when Joe had last slept.

            “Aw, dude,” Pete said, his voice a little distorted in Joe’s ear. “Don’t make me do this. I’m a shit babysitter.”

            “Do what?” Joe asked. Or, tried to ask. It came out something like “dough ut.”

            “You can either go to bed like a normal human person or I can tuck you in. And take pictures,” Pete said. It was hard to tell through the swirling, but the glint of white could easily be a trademark mischievous Pete grin.

            “I can’t go to sleep,” Joe slurred. “S’dangerous.”

            “Hey, no danger,” Patrick said. “I’m not even bleeding anymore, so I won’t attract anything.”

            The bed sounded really warm.

            “You’ve got, like, ten more seconds to get under the covers before I tuck you in,” Pete said.

            Joe got under the covers and he suspected Pete did something anyway, because he waved his hand over Joe and sleep engulfed him.

            He didn’t really remember it in the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah this got sappy as all hell sorry i'm like this 24/7 joe just deserves better


	18. October 20 - Concussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy is really injured after dealing with egrigors, and just has to wait for things to get better.

            Three days after their run in with the… the not-Fall Out Boy, Andy was still nursing a headache. It had gotten to a point where it was almost more annoying than it was painful.

            Almost.

            But whenever Carmilla cried out, or the bus hit a pothole, or Andy just _thought_ something too hard, it felt sort of like someone had stuck a screwdriver through his brain via his ears.

            Somewhere, in the midst of all the ringing, he could hear Dr. Ferrum’s unhelpful advice. Painkillers, of course, didn’t really work on vampires! It was something something metabolism, something something body composition, it hadn’t really mattered. The gist was that Andy was just going to have to suffer through the pain. Indefinitely.

            No, not indefinitely. Headaches couldn’t last forever. But the sound of his daughter’s high-pitched laughter had him pulling back his fingernails and biting his lip till he tasted blood. He was not going to yell at his daughter for playing, he was not-

            “Patrick?” Andy sort of sounded like he was crying. “Babysit. Please. I’ll owe you whatever just. Please.”

            Patrick was knocking (hammering) on the bus door in seconds, and Andy burst past him out the door, already sliding on sunglasses.

            (Possibly, given the creatures who had injured him, he shouldn’t have worn shades, but it was sunny out, and what was a vampire with sensitive eyes to do?)

            His head still throbbed without stimulation. It throbbed, and his vision behind the dark glasses was fuzzy and distorted. Andy had taken off in, ambiguously, whatever direction was _away_ from all the noise, and now he was in a small field, unsure of where he was going. It was hard to see when the world in front of him was wavering like a mirage.

            Another minute of unsteady walking, and the world started swooping under his feet, rocking back and forth at such dramatic angles that he fell, the hells of his hands slamming into the dirt. He hadn’t eaten all day, but he was nauseous, seasick on dry land. Andy hunched forward and spat bile out of his mouth, his stomach still aching.

            He wasn’t sure how long he knelt on the grass before he felt a warm, firm pressure on his back. Andy shuddered in response, and slowly, a numbness spread out from the pressure, running up his back and into his skull, leaving him blissfully free of pain.

            Andy moaned an orgasmic moan before sitting up straight. He looked up to see Pete, his dark silhouette haloed by bright sunlight that no longer stung Andy’s eyes.

            “Better?” Pete asked.

            “Better,” Andy said, and he took Pete’s hand helping him up, and let himself be led back to the buses.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I wrote this days ago but didn't want to transcribe it from notebook to computer i love you guys


	19. October 21 - Harsh Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick can't take the cold. Pete can't really either. They deal.

            Chicago wasn’t exactly known for its mild winters. It was, in fact, known for the opposite, and Patrick, wearing nothing but a torn hoodie while he rode on the back of a stone lion, was really feeling the bitterness of the weather.

            The lions, thankfully, were gone, but there was still a ways to walk back to Chris’ apartment, and Patrick was shaking so hard that it was difficult to walk. The rest of his band seemed most concerned about the bloody gash on his chest, but mostly Patrick was just cold.

            Pete had given Patrick his coat, though, and that was helping a little, though it wasn’t helping Pete. Had was damn notorious for his “cool guy” image, but cool had made room for cold. Pete’s lips were a pale shade of blue, and Patrick was getting a little overwhelmed with guilt.

            Hating himself already, Patrick shrugged the coat back off and draped it over Pete’s shoulders while they walked. Pete jerked and shook his head, trying to push the coat off.

            “D-d-dude,” Pete said. “You- you’re freezing. Y-y-you should k-keep it.”

            Patrick shook his head. His teeth were chattering, like they might crack, and he was pretty sure if he tried to argue with Pete he would accidentally bite off his own tongue. He just lifted up his arms (too goddamn cold, he couldn’t spare the heat around his core, Jesus) and held the coat down on Pete’s shoulders, eyes narrowed. Pete finally broke, either under the stare or because he was that cold, and he slipped his arms into the coat before trudging forward.

            This arrangement didn’t work for long, and soon Patrick was stumbling over his numb feet, even hunched in on himself.

            “Stick your arms out,” Pete demanded.

            “Y-y-you d-don’t-” Patrick tried, but he was right about the teeth chattering. His tongue wasn’t going to survive a real attempt at fighting with Pete. Pete slid the Pete onto Patrick’s numb and unmoving arms, and then said “not too much further” under his breath.

            Patrick also couldn’t help but notice that they were both being very low key about switching the coat back and forth. Talking lower with one another, and, as Patrick looked over his shoulder, lower enough that Joe and Andy couldn’t hear them. They could’ve probably asked the others for assistance with the cold, but neither of them was.

            Non-super solidarity, Patrick thought. Or, non-super-strength solidarity, at least. He leaned into Pete as they walked together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they were in love way before they knew they were in love tbh


	20. October 22 - Friendly Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small accident during training.

            The day outside was gorgeous. The sun was shining, it was seventy-five degrees with a light breeze. The grassy knoll was emerald green, the sounds of laughter and distant rock music filled the air, and Andy had just been shot in the arm.

            Andy stared at the wound in disbelief. Blood started to trickle down his arm. It stung, but only if Andy really thought about it. The chattering around him went quiet. Andy looked up, made contact with Bob, who promptly dropped the antique gun he was holding, and looked horrified.

            “You fucking shot me, dude,” Andy said. The wound started to sting a bit more, and he glanced down at it, the blood pouring faster.

            “I’m so sorry!” Bob said. “Holy shit, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to hit you!”

            “I figured,” Andy said. He wasn’t angry, but hey. Ow.

            Andy pulled his shirt aside to see that the bullet had only grazed him, leaving a tear in the side of his arm. It looked like hell, glistening crimson in the summer sun, but he was sure it wouldn’t be that bad of a job healing. It burned like hell, though.

            “Joe,” Andy called. “Do by any chance keep silver bullets in your gun?”

            “Yeah, Jesus,” Joe said. He ran over to Andy and examined the wound. Everyone else had stopped fighting practice, but they hovered in a loose semi-circle around him. Gerard pulled the closest, eyes wide as he examined the wound. Andy pulled his arm away from the crowd a little, holding it close to his body and to Joe.

            “It’s not bad,” Joe said, and though Andy had already made this assessment, it was a little irksome. The bullet was silver. It stung. “We should just clean it out and wrap it up.”

            “Rub some dirt in it,” Andy muttered, and Joe laughed.

            It wasn’t bad, but it did bring up some darker thoughts. Joe was a good shot, but then, Bob wasn’t bad either. The gun was finicky. And Fall Out Boy, at least, had never really bothered training before this. It would be easy, dangerously easy to make a mistake like this when they were actually fighting something. Too easy for one of them to hit another one instead of a vampire, maybe even to kill them.

            But the bandages were on fast, and the light summer breeze blew away those less pleasant thoughts, for the most part. What was not gone was pushed, stowed away in the back of Andy’s mind as something they would deal with when they had to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another andy chapter! sorry this is kind of boring, I haven't really done much with friendly fire yet, lol


	21. October 23 - Self-Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete would die for his friends without question.

            If it was between Patrick, Joe, and himself, Pete knew who it had to be.

            Joe was… well, yeah, Pete razzed the kid, but it was like having a second kid brother. A kid brother who hadn’t learned well enough not to take Pete’s shit, which made him much funnier, and in that naivety, weirdly made Pete more protective of him. 

            Patrick, Pete had more faith that he could take care of himself, but he felt a different kind of protective about Patrick. Patrick had teeth - not in a werewolf way, but in a way that made him feel unshakeable. Maybe that was what Pete was so protective of: not Patrick’s softness, but his harness. He couldn’t stand to see something chip away at the solidity of his best friend.

            When Bloody Mary, the awful legend come to life in their bathroom, asked Pete to choose between the two, it was no choice at all. They were just kids, and Pete wasn’t going to let them get hurt.

            “Can I pick someone other than those two?” Pete asked. Mary was holding each of them in her hands like it was nothing, like her muscles weren’t just so many layers of ash flaking off of her and onto the carpet. Like cigarette ash, Pete thought. They were never getting their safety deposit back. The ghost girl was going to burn down their home.

            “Yes.”

            “Okay, I pick me.”

            Pete had spent his whole life flirting with the idea of dying. Going out in a grand, brave gesture of sacrificing himself for someone else, for two of the best friends he’d ever had in his life, that was like, the ideal way to go. He shrugged at Patrick, and then he was flying. 

            Mary was dragging him to the mirror, the both of them floating at top speed, and Pete closed his eyes as he saw the mirror, an indeterminable shadow wavering in the center like the maw of something intangible and transcendent. He didn’t want to look death in the face as it came, just wanted to know he had died for something good and worthy, and he couldn’t imagine something better or more worthy than the guys standing outside the bathroom. 

            And then his forehead smacked against the glass with teeth-rattling force, and he fell right back onto his ass on the bathroom floor.

            So much for heroism, Pete hadn’t done anything to save the day, just gotten hit in the face and lost a lot of sleep. But then, he thought later, nobody else died, nobody else got taken to a hell dimension. Maybe it really was the thought that counted. Maybe he did good enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda short, hopefully sweet! I'm still behind but I'm doing my bestest


	22. October 24 - Drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy has nightmares.

            Andy had no problems with swimming… by human standards.

            His mom registered him for swim classes when he was a kid, like all the other kids, she said. He could hold his breath for a really long time, and he was stronger than the other six and seven year olds, so he was a better swimmer, but something about holding his head underwater… he didn’t like it.

            Andy didn’t like being enveloped. It wasn’t quite claustrophobia, but it was… something.

            When Pete came up to him, over a decade later, sobbing out of breath saying Patrick was…. Kidnapped by mermaids, Andy didn’t hesitate. He was going to help out, going to save the day. But. Under the water, surrounded on every possible side, it was a lot. It was hard.

            Part of it, Andy thinks, was the dreams.

            Most of the trauma in his life and from his dreams came back to blood. He saw blood the way Catholic kids saw sex - something amazing, tempting, dazzling, sinful. Blood was like nectar in Greek mythology in terms of taste, but it was dirty. His mom didn’t mean to make it sound that way, but she did. There was something carnal about drinking human blood.

            So, maybe Andy didn’t like going underwater because of the blood dream. In his dream, he bit down on someone’s neck - something he’d done to one unlucky babysitter, his father, and Patrick in real life - and sucked, lapping it hot and thick down his throat. It soothed a ragged ache, it coated his throat like velvet. In the dream, he kept drinking. And drinking. And drinking.

            When he was full, too full, there was still blood, still gushing from the torn neck that Andy had ruined like a spigot. Till it was surrounding him, overwhelming him, drowning him. Till there was nothing else - red behind his wide eyes, iron in his nose, heat and rust and salt all around him.

            The nightmare, in short terms, was blood consuming him rather than him consuming blood.

            So sometimes, Andy didn’t like swimming. But mostly, he just tried not to think about it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a weak one but there's actually not a lot of drowning in this story and... well, if I were faster at posting the regular chapter... but nevermind. Spoilers. Next one is great though, promise ;)


	23. October 25 - Restraints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe learned about silver via trial and error, mostly trial.

            Silver and werewolves was kind of… finicky, was the thing. It was obviously their weakness, but not to the degree that other magical creatures had weaknesses, not really. Holding an iron bar against the skin of a faerie made their skin burn like the metal was white hot. Holy Water burned fae and vampires too, like acid. Holy Water didn’t seem to bother Joe, though he’d heard some people say that worked as a means of holding off werewolves.

            The way Joe got turned, finding out what his weaknesses were was a matter of trial and error. He thought for years that he didn’t have any problems with silver because his mom used real silverware, forks and knives that weren’t made of cheap aluminum or silver leaf over plastic, and he didn’t have problems eating dinner or anything. He could touch her necklaces and earrings and he felt nothing. He could turn when the moon wasn’t full, and go to church, and he didn’t get miraculously good at basketball, so he was starting to think that _most_ werewolf stories were myths.

            The truth was, of course, more complicated and less convenient, as the truth had a tendency to be.

            Something about Joe’s blood didn’t mix well with silver. Since precious metals were pretty hard to inject people with, this wasn’t really a problem, except for when it was.

            Say, for example, Joe was 16 and playing a show late at night, filling in for some shitty metal band that was opening for a slightly less shitty metal band at Beat Kitchen, and his parents let him stay out late because, well, you don’t have to give your werewolf kid a can of mace to make him safe from muggers. He has an okay time, mostly just likes the fact that that’s a real crowd out there, moshing and screaming and not caring that Joe’s young. Say the bouncer gave him a funny look when he came inside but it’s not as though being underaged is a crime, and he kind of takes pride in being such a prodigy on guitar, on being a name people in the Chicago scene know.

            Say this is a really good night for him.

            He goes out into the crowd after they’ve packed up their equipment. The set is almost over, but there’s something exhilarating about being in the crowd at a good show - or any show, even this mediocre one. He hits someone in the face in the pit, jumping too fast and too hard and a little off beat, his skull slamming into their jaw. The guy is roughly 12 feet tall, or so it seems, but it’s a mosh pit and people get hurt, so Joe gives him a friendly smile and thinks nothing of it, not even when the guy gives him a death glare in response. Bitch. If you didn’t want to get hit, Joe thinks, what are you doing in a mosh pit?

            Say he hangs around afterwards too, helping the headliner pack up, chatting with these twenty-something dudes. They’re nice, and there’s no one Joe would really consider himself to be friends with, but lots of acquaintances. But then everyone leaves, and the bouncer catches Joe by the shoulder.

            “Hey,” says the bouncer. “You’re a kid, so I’m gonna let you off with a warning. Your kind doesn’t come here.”

            Joe looks him up and down. The bouncer is white, and Joe has no idea what he means. 

            “I have no idea what you mean,” Joe says.

            The twelve-foot-tall guy from the mosh pit comes up behind the bouncer, eyes dark as he stares a mile down at Joe.

            “Maybe you should let him off with a warning he’ll remember,” Shaquille O Neal says. Joe still kind of wants to laugh because what these muscle-dudes don’t know is that _he’s a goddamn werewolf_ , but then tall guy pulls his lips back, and his eye teeth, they’re long and sharp, they’re fangs.

            Say Joe has never met a vampire before.

            So the bouncer grins and he pulls out a pair of handcuffs, and Joe doesn’t know why, but they don’t look like normal handcuffs, they look heavy, chintzy almost. Then he clamps them down on Joe’s wrists, so fast Joe doesn’t know what hit him, but these handcuffs have sharp edges, edges that cut into Joe’s skin and burn like fire.

            Joe’s eyes widen and the handcuffs tighten and the tall guy says “Silver. Hear dogs don’t like it,” and this pain, worse than transformation, makes Joe feel like he’s going to black out.

            One of the vampires drags Joe by the restraints, the pain travelling up his arms and through his chest, waves of fire lapping at him. He realizes he might be crying. They drag him all the way outside, onto the street, out back in an alley, and Joe waits to be beaten to death.

            The tall vampire lifts Joe up, too high, unnaturally high, then lets him drop down on his ass. His tailbone stings, but it’s nothing compared to the pain in his wrists. The vampires have let go, and Joe tries to lurch forward, to come at them, but his wrists catch and he howls - actual, wolf-howls - in pain. The vampires, they laugh.

            “Dogs don’t seem to mind bein’ chained up all night either,” bouncer vampire says. “You don’t mind the cold, right, puppy?”

            Joe pulls forward again, but they dropped him so his chained arms encircle a fence post. He can’t move, not without the silver digging into his skin, cutting into his wrists. One of the vampires lunges, Joe flinches back, and they both laugh.

            “Are you- are you gonna drink my blood?” Joe asks. He’s staring at the ground, snowy, it’s winter, and the vampires laugh again.

            “We don’t drink dog blood,” one of them says. “You smell awful.”

            “Sweet dreams, puppy,” the other one says. They walk away, leave Joe out in the cold in his hoodie, band gone, wrists dripping blood if he didn’t hold them just so, like some sick kind of torture game.

            In the morning, the police come get him, someone hears shouting, and bolt cutters do the trick, and when his parents ask Joe doesn’t want to talk about it, he just gets grounded, he doesn’t care.

            Say something like that happens.

            Times like those, that’s when the silver intolerance is a bit of a problem.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys i'm so mean to joe, but THIS is what whumptober is all about. I'm back, kids, I promise  
> ps the character of shaqpire is based off a guy at my first ever concert. mychem, also in chicago, back in 2011. tall dude with the beer, hitting teenagers? go fuck yourself


	24. October 26 - Broken Ribs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some injuries really suck, but Patrick toughs them out like a superhero. Like an X-Man. Or something.

            Patrick had had a lot of injuries in his life, and a good, solid ninety-nine percent of them occurred after he joined Fall Out Boy. Probably more. As a kid, he had been kind of an indoor player, more of a TV than tree climbing sort of boy. He had the infamous ice skating scar (one of the only things he could talk about in interviews) and his fair share of skinned knees, but he didn’t even get broken bones on his record like his siblings did.

            But things had changed, and Patrick had experienced getting thrown across the parking lot like an extra in an X-Men movie a few days previously. And man, but Hugh Jackman made it look like getting thrown across a parking lot was something you just brushed off and walked away from, _rub some dirt in it_. Obviously Patrick didn’t think he was Wolverine or anything, but he hadn’t anticipated the real world damage that came with being physically thrown dozens of feet and landing on something hard.

            Thus, broken ribs. It was a sucky injury for anyone, but he was of the selfish opinion that, you know, as a singer, it was a little worse for him. His chest felt sharp when he inhaled, like there were blades sticking in from the broken rib. Which were not, definitely not, shards of bone, but he was a little nervous if he thought about it too hard.

            Patrick tried to walk it off, like… okay, maybe not like Wolverine, but maybe like Cyclops or Angel, one of the slightly less impressive heroes squaring off with bad guys in the background. Nobody in the supporting bands, save for Gym Class Heroes, seemed to know anything was wrong at all, and Patrick preferred it that way. He acted normal, from hunching over his laptop in between sets to helping pack up the equipment after shows and trying not to make faces that said “I am actively being stabbed in the chest right now.”

            Pete told him to give it a rest, when he noticed, but one of the convenient things about dating Pete was that he wasn’t very consistent in when he noticed things, so Patrick could get away with the manual labor most of the time.

            Pete was, on the other hand, annoyingly strong of memory when they had a few free hours to kill and Patrick pointed out the big, comfy bed in the back room of the bus that they had all to themselves.

            “The doctor said no rough sex,” Pete said.

            “Who said it had to be rough?” Patrick would counter, and he would win at least half the time. But still.

            Sometimes Patrick thought he saw Joe clutching at his side, but he wasn’t sure, and since only Pete could read auras, Patrick was pretty sure he was getting away with writing this injury off and not being the needy, damaged human.

            So, after all this hard work, after all the heavy lifting of dragging orange amps back and forth from venue to bus, after fucking singing to crowds of ten thousand every night, Patrick was kind of pissed when what really kicked the pain into high gear was a bad dream.

            Patrick was caught in the middle of a dream that felt humid, swampy in nature. He was wrapped in an oppressive heat, and he caught flashes of black eyes and glistening red fangs out of the corner of his eyes when he was ripped back into consciousness. He let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a scream, clapping his hand to his side because something twisted and gnarled had just stabbed him right in the lungs.

            Patrick was still gasp-screaming, curled in on himself while he waited for the pain to subside - hoped the pain would subside- for a few moments before he heard Pete’s voice, though it was clear that he hadn’t just begun speaking.

            “-baby, baby please talk to me what’s wrong where are you hurt?”

            And goddamn, but some days Patrick wondered where he wasn’t hurt.

            “Rib- my-?” Patrick gasped, eyes slammed shut as he stayed crunched in at the stomach. He was terrified, for a moment, that he had done some sort of irreparable damage, that the bone had broken inwards and punctured a lung and _then_ where would they be? but no, the pain slowly, agonizingly slowly, began to ease up.

            “Sorry,” Patrick said, eventually. His side hadn’t stopped aching, but it was bearable enough to talk. His eyes smarted, embarrassing, even if it was just Pete.

            “You okay?” Pete said. His wide, dark eyes were so fervent, like he was going to take Patrick to an emergency room then and there and demand they do something, even knowing full well that there was nothing to be done.

            “I’m fine,” Patrick said. He even pulled off a semi-convincing smile, and stroked Pete’s hair while Pete fell asleep.

            Patrick was always fine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i'm late again this came out better than I thought it would! "but L, are we always gonna have to read about Patrick-" probably, yeah  
> new chapter is coming along, I swear <3


	25. October 27 - "I Can't Walk"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete ends up battered after a fight, has some thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a hell of a weak link but hold tight, kids, it's gonna get good

            Pete is rarely the guy who gets physically injured in fights these days, in stark difference to when the band started and he was actively getting his nose punched in while his bandmates were all either pacifists or boring. But when they started regularly fighting monsters, well. It wasn’t like Pete wasn’t up for a good fight, he was, but he was maybe so used to fighting humans who dated his exes that he didn’t have much of an idea how to fight with blows meant to kill. It was perhaps for that reason that he wasn’t all that useful in fights, and because of that, hung back from time to time, offering support and defense when he could, but often that felt like it. Andy and Joe were all the muscle, and Patrick was just stupid and self-sacrificial enough to cover the rest.

            It was, therefore, something of a shock when, during a nasty fight with a creature that looked like an oversized scorpion, Pete ended up doing the majority of the battling. It was something Carmilla, something arachnophobia, and all of a sudden, Pete was machete-to-stinger with a monster straight out of either an Indiana Jones movie or an old Spider-Man cartoon. It was near enough to their scary encounter with meeting Brandon Flowers and his “year and a day” bullshit that Pete almost thought the monster was something he sent, but it was too… simple for him, he decided. This thing just wanted to fight, riled up by someone or something.

            And fight it did. It was surprisingly spry for an insect.

            “Arachnid,” Joe grunted when Pete made this observation out loud. It wasn’t like they were keeping up in fight banter like the Justice League or anything, so it was enough to distract him from the stinger as it bore down on them. Pete had less then a second to react, and luckily when it came to self-sacrifice, he didn’t even consider it to be a choice.

            Pete dove in front of Joe, between him and the stinger, and he felt it like the stab of a sword as the end of the scorpion’s enormous tail plunged into his thigh. Pete’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but he didn’t scream. He let out one barely audible gasp, and then someone had cut off the head of the creature. Its stinger was still stuck in Pete’s leg.

            “Get- get-” Pete tried. He felt shaky and breathless, like the whole world was vibrating around him.

            Someone, one of his band, ripped the stinger out, and Pete screamed then, a short burst of a scream. Blood gushed hot and thick from his leg, but it was coagulating fast, the almost fist-sized hole already slowing in the speed of blood pouring.

            “Pete,” Patrick was staring right into his eyes. “Are you okay?”

            “I don’t know,” Pete admitted at once. He took Patrick’s hand as Patrick tried to pull him to his feet, but even as he started to stand, his legs gave out beneath him, boneless. His vision was sort of fuzzy, and he looked at the alarming rusty color the blood around the wound had turned.

            “Actually,” Pete said. “No, I’m not okay. I can’t walk.”

            The poison, whatever it was, was mercifully fast-acting. The world stopped shaking all around him as he passed out.

            Pete was mercifully not unconscious for long. When he opened his eyes again, he still felt a little bit faint, but was pretty happy to discover that the world had stopped seizing around him. Actually, he felt a little bit drugged, heavy and slow and cold.

            “I think he’s waking up,” someone said.

            Pete was too exhausted to say anything snarky in response to that. He just blinked slowly, letting the world ease itself back into focus.

            “Wha- happen?” he tried. He sounded sort of drugged too.

            “Andy sucked the venom out,” Joe said. “Like with the zombie. Sometimes it’s convenient, you know, keeping a vampire around.”

            “Well, that was horrifying,” Pete said. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but still his legs did not seem willing to cooperate. The thigh that had been struck - it was like it was dead. Pete could feel it, feel the dull throb where the venom had been, but it didn’t respond to him, whatever he did. For a brief second, he was unconcerned. And then he was almost knocked over with the force of his own panic.

            “I can’t- I still can’t walk,” he said, and the panic was overwhelming. He couldn’t not walk, he played in a band, he still liked sports, soccer and tennis. There was no part of him that was even remotely prepared for a world of not being able to walk. The anxiety welled up inside him, overflowed until it burbled out of him- a steady stream of “can’t walk I can’t,” that he didn’t quite know how to stop.

            The terror lingered while he was carried away, while he fell asleep, and he could still taste the bitter fear lingering in his mouth when he woke up the next morning, his legs entirely functional.

            Pete didn’t regret jumping in to take the hit, not exactly. But he wasn’t so quick to jump again.

 


	26. October 28 - Severe Illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete is dying, even if Patrick thinks it's just the flu. Patrick is persuaded eventually.

            Pete was dying. Patrick insisted that it was a seasonal flu, but Pete was _dying_. He could tell by the way his whole body ached, by the sandiness in his throat and the way moving just one inch felt like running a mile’s worth of effort. But every time he tried to tell Patrick he was dying, Patrick would shush him and say “I know, baby, it’s okay,” and coax some more water down his throat.

            Pete didn’t like the sensation of dying. His fever and the intermittent sweats and chills that came with it gave him sticky dreams, the world encroaching in on him, hot bodies pressed against him or swampy rain clinging to his skin. The dreams, almost all of them nightmares, were slick and shadowy, and he woke up feeling less rested than before he went to sleep, desperately needing to call Brendon or Morgan or his mom or anyone he might have dreamt about to be sure they were okay.

            But he didn’t usually have the energy for that, so syruppy tendrils of sleep pulled him back under again and again and again.

            All the while, Patrick sat at his bedside. Pete thought this was incredible, given that just days ago he was taking the piss out of Patrick for something stupid he said to that cute girl in his biology class, and Patrick still hadn’t forgiven him. But when he told Patrick as much, Patrick frowned like he finally understood how serious it was that Pete was dying.

            “Pete,” Patrick said. “What year do you think it is?”

            Pete didn’t know. The inside of his mouth felt like maple syrup but tasted like the scent of dying ladybugs, and he didn’t know what year it was. Come to think of it, Patrick didn’t look like he was in high school.

            “I don’t know,” Pete said, the words all slurry and thick on his tongue. “I want- I wanna go home?”

            “We are home, baby,” Patrick said, and Pete didn’t understand why Patrick called called him baby or where they were or where his mom was, but he supposed that he probably was home if Patrick was there so he closed his eyes and leaned in closer. Patrick was warm, but not so hot that he was burning Pete’s skin, and he felt familiar, with a soft aura that felt better.

            Another sticky-sweet dream, filled with blood vessels bursting under Pete’s skin and then oozing up out of his pores, hot and smelling like cherry pie filling. Broken bodies laying on the floor, flickering lights, and the sound of someone screaming. When he woke up again (if he was awake at all, the only difference half the time was that awake Pete could speak) he screamed for Patrick, and even though he was at least two hundred degrees, the tears burnt on his cheeks.

            Patrick ran into the room, eyes wide and panicked, and Pete threw himself out of bed, still sobbing, into Patrick’s arms. The stickiness of his dreams had transferred to reality in sweat, tears, vomit, maybe piss, Pete wasn’t so sure, but he was damn and hot and Patrick was cool and safe and “You’re not dead you’re okay you were bleeding Patrick we’ve got to get out of here I promised I promised I won’t let you die here-!”

            Patrick shushed Pete and all but carried him into an enormous bathroom. Not the industrial, doorless bath/shower combo Pete remembered from the hotel, but a messy bathroom with an uncapped tube of toothpaste on the counter, a Nightmare Before Christmas beach towel crumpled on the floor, and a huge tub with jets in it.

            Patrick sat Pete up on the toilet where Pete swayed, his head throbbing without rhythm. Patrick ran a bath with the kind of silent pragmatism Pete expected of someone carrying out a lethal injection, and then he undressed Pete with the same efficiency. Pete made a curious noise in the back of his throat, because Patrick didn’t really do the whole nudity thing, he was pretty sure he remembered that, but then Patrick eased Pete into the warm water, and it felt so good that Pete forgot anything else.

            “It’s okay,” Patrick breathed. “It’s okay, baby, it’s just fine. I’ve got you, we’re safe, the doctor said it’s gonna be fine.”

            “Patrick,” Pete said. Patrick had a nice name, a firm consonant at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, but nothing too hard to enunciate, so that it was hard to slur. Pete said his name over and over again, like a magic word, some kind of plea that he couldn’t say any other way, then over and over some more until it turned into a mantra, _PatrickPatrickPatrick_.

            He woke up in bed again, feeling clammy but as though his mind was mostly back in his mind. He drank a glass of stagnant water sitting on the bedside table and tried to hash out where he was. It was… 2008? 2008, yes, and he was in California. In his house. He was sick, he thought, and his boyfriend, Patrick (boyfriend!) was there too. Taking care of him.

            He thought all of this once more, then once again, repeating the thought to himself for the comfort of it, and then he rolled over and fell back asleep.

            Pete was leaning over the edge of the toilet vomiting, and his knees ached so that he knew he’d been there for a while but he couldn’t remember it. But his throat hurt and the acid in his stomach burnt and he was crying and saying “Please, please, kill me, it hurts,” and someone stroked his hair and said it was going to be okay, he knew it hurt, but he promised it would be okay, and though Pete didn’t stop crying, he believed the voice.

            When Pete woke up with the flu finally shaken off, Patrick was laying next to him, exhausted. Pete kissed Patrick’s forehead gently, and Patrick’s eyes opened just a little.

            “Hey,” Patrick said. “How you feeling?”

            “Better,” Pete said, and he snuggled into Patrick’s back, and fell back into a finally dreamless sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had some more fun with experimenting and copying Gillian Flynn's style in this one!!! I wanted to do something really stylistic and I think I'm most proud of this and "Fever" out of the whole series, so I hope you guys like it too


	27. October 29 - Seizure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe takes Carmilla trick or treating, and gets very, very sick

            “Look, dude, I say this with all the respect in the world because I don’t want to step on your toes while you’re parenting or, you know, sound too much like Pete, but you can’t _not_ take Carm trick or treating. It’s Halloween, she’s turning four, this is the first Halloween she’s guaranteed to remember, and do you want her to remember it as a night watching Caspar and eating candy corn with her grandma?”

            The other line was silent for so long that Joe was pretty sure he _had_ overstepped his boundaries (and had possibly sounded too much like Pete as well). But after a moment, Andy sighed.

            “I know, dude. I don’t want her to miss it, but I can’t be in town, and nobody in Fuck City is around, and since mom can’t really go out until it gets dark out… I’m at a loss. I feel awful, but I promised her we’d do other fun stuff for her birthday, just not on the day of.”

            “She’s turning four,” Joe said. “That logic shit really has to wait till the kid is twelve. Look, if you need a babysitter to take her trick or treating, I’ll do it.”

            “Really?!”

            Joe was taken aback at the intensity of Andy’s response.

            “Yeah, no shit, dude. Do you really want that?”

            “OF COURSE I DO!”

            “Okay, then I’ll be there tomorrow.”

            Just like that, Joe had Halloween plans.

            The good news was that he loved Andy’s little rugrat. As soon as Andy was out the door of his enormous Milwaukee compound, Joe lifted Carmilla up and swung her around the room. Carmilla shrieked while Joe spun her in circles, then pulled her in tight with a “hey, munchkin. Ready to go trick or treating?”

            Joe helped her get dressed (as Ariel, to Andy’s intense chagrin) and even put on a costume of his own (“Triton, get it? The beard and the trident?”) and they were off. Birthday or no, Joe didn’t really want to be out all night, so he was grateful after a few hours of vampire-sitting that Carmilla had a bedtime of eight PM.

            She wasn’t in a regular preschool yet, so there were neighbors Carmilla knew, but nobody that she stopped and wanted to go trick or treating with. She seemed largely happy to swing Joe’s hand back and forth and babble while she walked. The kid could barely talk a year ago, and now she did nothing but - she talked about Caillou and how Andy tried to make her dress up as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and how excited she was for kindergarten. She talked so fast Joe felt his head spinning,

            And Carmilla was an easy kid. By the time seven at night rolled around she was yawning and leaning against Joe’s leg, tugging on his shirt saying she was getting sleepy. So Joe picked her up and carried her home, tucked her into bed, and let her have a piece of candy before she fell asleep.

            “You can have some too, Uncle Joe,” she said solemnly. “You trick’r treated just as much as me. You can have half my candy.”

            “Thanks, kiddo,” Joe said, and he kissed her forehead, turned out the lights, and sat back down in the living room.

            The kid was sweet. Really sweet. And Joe wasn’t actually going to, like, steal candy from a child, but she did _offer_ , so he pulled out a piece while watching TV. One turned to two turned to passing out on the couch with chocolate stains around his mouth.

            “You have fun?” Andy asked. He was haloed by morning light, and seemed a little smug, but Joe couldn’t focus on him. His vision was fuzzy, and his muscles all felt very wrong.

            “Mm-hm,” he said, and he tried to sit up, but his vision was completely askew- not fuzzy, but tilted, spun out like he was on drugs. Joe fell forward immediately and felt his stomach twist, but didn’t vomit.

            “Up for a quick mission?” Andy asked, apparently not noticing how off Joe was. “There’s a vampire who tried to kill some trick or treaters last night, and Pete and Patrick were passing through Chicago anyway. We could probably just scare the guy.”

            “Yeah, yeah ‘m up for it,” Joe said, slowly easing his way to his feet. He felt ill, but not too bad, nothing he couldn’t shake off. He transformed before even leaving the house, just to try and wake himself up properly, but then he only felt worse.

            He clambered into the car in wolf form, but he felt hot and cold at the same time. He closed his eyes on the whole drive across the city, feeling a hot twisting in his gut. He didn’t even notice when the car lurched to a halt.

            “Gone already,” Pete said, his voice too loud and echoing. “Think we can follow the trail while it’s still fresh, but we could be out for a while.”

            “Damn,” Andy said, his voice even louder. Unable to articulate that he needed them to lower their voices a little, Joe let out a low whimper. He felt so hot, and his tongue lolled out automatically to start panting, but it did nothing for him. In fact, there was a big, dry patch on his tongue, in spite of how sticky-wet his throat and stomach felt.

            Joe whined a little louder, unable to open his heavy eyes. The voices grew quieter, at least. Patrick was murmuring, asking if he was sick, could he try turning back and telling them? but Joe definitely couldn’t turn back, couldn’t even really move. He forced his eyes open to look up at his band right before he was gripped with a sensation that seemed to charge through his muscles like everything had tensed all at once.

            Joe couldn’t even howl to alert anyone that something was wrong, he just felt as his muscles seized, shaking without control. Like he might vibrate off the passenger seat. His tongue felt a little less dry, given that he was salivating so much that drool was spilling out of the sides of his mouth. And though his brain was mostly firing in terms of flashes of black and white, he could still hear his band, too far away and too close at the same time. _“Is he hurt?” “Holy shit, what’s happening?” “I think he’s having a seizure!”_

            They were somewhere else when Joe could properly open his eyes again, somewhere darker and quieter but still outside in Milwaukee. Joe whined again, a weak noise, and rolled his eyes just enough to see Pete on the phone with someone, eyebrows furrowed.

            “Yeah, no, I don’t know what happened.... Uh-huh, still in wolf form… Joe?”

            Joe looked at him more pointedly.

            “Can you please try and transform?”

            Joe thought about it. He wanted to, but he was way too weak for that, and eventually he shook his head.

            “No, he can’t… okay, that’s easy enough. And we’ll head your way as soon as possible.”

            A car door opened, shut, opened again, and Pete was pouring water out of a bottle and down Joe’s throat. Joe couldn’t whine or make much noise around this, and instead drank, grateful for the taste of something that felt clean.

            “Ferrum says seizures in canine are usually not too bad,” Pete said. “So we just need you to keep drinking water until you can shift forms. And then we’re on the next plane to LA, okay?”

            Joe would have nodded if he could have, but instead he just huffed, and hoped Pete got the gist of it.

            They drove to the airport, thoughts of the vampire all but forgotten. By the time they got there, Joe was able, with a great deal of effort, to shift forms, gasping for breath as soon as he was human again.

            “Joe,” his whole band sounded relieved, but Pete was the one immediately assessing him for damage. “What’s up, dude?”

            “I don’t know,” Joe said. His tongue still felt thick and heavy in his mouth, his limbs too weighty, but he already felt better. “As soon as I changed I just felt… awful. I still feel awful.”

            “Well, the good doctor cleared us space,” Pete said. He glanced at Joe, who still looked ashen. “Do you need to throw up or something, dude? You look like hell.”

            “I do,” Joe said. “But I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

            The plane ride was too long, and Joe felt as bad as he looked the whole time. He was finally starting to feel a little better by the time they got to Dr. Ferrum’s office, and she ran a blood test right off the bat.

            It took a while for results, but eventually she came back into the room with a very serious face that it looked like she was trying very hard to hold in place.

            “Well, Joe, I think you’re going to be fine,” she said. “Would you, ah, like me to give you the toxicology report in private?”

            “No?” Joe said, completely bemused. “Here’s fine. Is… whatever it is, is it out of my system?”

            “Not yet, but give it time,” Ferrum said. “Ah, the only abnormality I could find was abnormally high levels of theobromine, which reacted negatively with your system when you shifted to your canine form.”

            “Theobromine?” Joe repeated.

            She paused for a moment.

            “Theobromine is, ah, a chemical commonly found in chocolate,” she said. She was barely holding back a smile. Pete did her one better by literally falling to the floor laughing.

            “Chocolate?” Joe said again. He wasn’t that embarrassed, but the louder Pete laughed, the worse he felt.

            “Were you eating Carmilla’s Halloween candy?” Andy asked, and Pete started to howl on the ground. Everyone that wasn’t Joe, as it turned out, was laughing.

            “Guys,” Joe sighed. Pete was turning sort of red on the ground, like maybe he was not getting all the oxygen he needed to survive while laughing about how Joe almost died.

            “I could have died,” Joe said. “Do- do you care?”

            “The levels of theobromine in your system would only be toxic to canines smaller than yourself, but you could have suffered brain damage, yes. I would recommend, in the future, that you remain in your human form after eating… larger than average amounts of chocolate.”

            Pete was still snorting so hard that it didn’t look like he could breathe, and Joe privately hoped he would choke.

            “You had a dog reaction to chocolate… after stealing candy from a baby,” Andy said.

            “I did not steal it!” Joe said. “She offered it to me!”

            “Is this one of those times where the bite is worse than the bark?” Patrick asked.

            “I’m leaving without you guys.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this even counts as whump but it was originally gonna be its own thing but then... I could not fucking think of anything for "seizure". So here we are!


	28. October 30 - Caregiver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OR
> 
> Three Times Pete Wentz Took Care of His Band and One Time His Band Took Care of Him

 

            The thing about Andy was that he was strong. Stronger than maybe anybody Pete knew, and in multiple senses. There was the obvious, Andy’s way out of whack physical strength that made using gyms totally useless for him because he was just that strong and muscle-y. The heaviest setting on a weight lifting machine was, to Andy, like an average load of groceries to a normal person. Pete once asked him how many pounds he could lift, just out of curiosity, and Andy had no answer for him. He’d never tested it with an official weight, he said, but he had once, with great difficulty, gone out to the Intermodal station and lifted up an industrial train - just on one side, just an inch or two, he said, like that made it any less impressive and terrifying.

            But Andy was emotionally strong too. He lost his dad when he was a kid, he spent so long just him and his mom, put up with all the childhood trauma related to vampirism. Pete knew Andy for years and in terms of crying, only saw him shed a Man Tear (™) or two when the Patriots won a football game. He didn’t cry over breakups, breakdowns, or the pain of getting his neck tattooed. He was a rock.

            It was kind of the same after Andrea.

            Oh, Andy was devastated, Pete knew that. He could see the throbbing red of his aura, feel Andy’s agony pressing against the sides of Pete’s aura. There were slivers of blue and green, of joy that his friends had made it out alive, wonder at his newborn daughter, but most of it was a sea of pain. Yet for all that, on the surface, Andy was stoic as ever. He smiled and shook his head at Pete’s jokes, he moved through his day like normal, with the new addition of caring for a child. He acted in every way like he wasn’t being eaten alive, like the weight of the world wasn’t pressing down on him so hard he was bound to be crushed at any second.

            Pete decided, after a few weeks, that he had let this jackassery stand for too long. He wanted to give Andy the space to macho the sad away, but clearly it wasn’t working. So, he hired Patrick on as a surprise babysitter (Patrick had no problem with this, and was, in fact, beyond thrilled to get to spend time with the kid) and all but kidnapped Andy. They listened to nothing but Metallica in the car, and Pete could see in Andy’s aura how annoyed he was getting with the whole thing. The whole reason for all the stolid response was to not get kid-gloves, but Pete was going to indulge Andy if it killed him.

            It wasn’t till they were deep in the countryside when Andy asked where they were going.

            “I think,” Pete said, “You are going to yell at me.”

            “I’ll yell at you more if you don’t tell me till we get there,” Andy warned.

            “We are on our way to Skywalker Ranch,” Pete said. He could not have predicted Andy’s response, as Andy punched the dashboard and threw himself back in the chair.

            “God DAMMIT, Pete, stop it!”

            Andy probably hadn’t meant it in a literal way, but nonetheless, Pete pulled the car over to the side of the road while Andy sat hunched over, shaking.

            “I thought… thought it might cheer you up,” Pete said.

            “I don’t WANT to be cheered up,” Andy screamed. “I killed a woman, Pete! I killed someone I love, I set a building on fire, I probably killed countless other people who didn’t deserve it. I left you and Patrick to die and didn’t even wash her mother’s blood off of Carmilla for fucking hours. I don’t _deserve_ to be cheered up, okay?”

            “Andy,” Pete didn’t want to cry, not when it wasn’t his grief. “You were. You were trying to save people.”

            “How many people do you think I saved?” Andy said. “Killing real people to fight an ideological war, how much good do you think I did?”

            “You did the right thing,” Pete said.

            “It doesn’t feel like it.”

            The sat in silence for a moment, the car filled with cheery, golden sunlight that really mismatched the mood.

            “Well, I’m not going to make your day worse,” Pete said. “So, what do you want me to do?”

            “I don’t know,” Andy said. “I really, really don’t.”

            They were silent for another beat.

            “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Skywalker Ranch?”

            “Pete, first of all, you need an invitation, and second of all if you take me there in the mood I’m in now I will break George Lucas’ nose.”

            “But I mean, that could be fun too.”

            “He’s not a vampire,” Andy said. “You want to go to jail with me for assaulting a famous director? And then, worse, face the consequences of leaving Joe and Patrick behind?”

            “If it would make you happy for a minute,” Pete said. “Then yes. No question.”

            Andy smiled, just the tiniest bit.

            “Suppose instead we get veggie burgers.” Pete tried again. “And we murder the man who made Phantom Menace another day?”

            “That sounds… acceptable,” Andy said. And he was much easier to cheer up once he let Pete start trying.

 

***

 

            Auras couldn’t speak in terms of words, but Pete had gotten pretty good at determining specific emotions from the swirls of colors - especially in people he loved. Joe’s emotions were clear as day, if you could read underneath the neutral upper layers of sarcasm and annoyance. And right then, sitting in the frozen yogurt shop, Joe was blasing out fear and pain and exhaustion, mingling in an emotion Pete could only describe as the emotion felt when a little kid keeps saying “I wanna go home I wanna go home I wanna go home” over and over again.

            As soon as the Backstreet Boys were gone, they were out of Ferrum's, and they were walking back to the car (“I only parked like three blocks away which is a goddamn miracle for LA at 10 in the morning,” says Patrick, a little defensively) Joe stumbled, very nearly face planting into the concrete. Pete caught him before he fell, holding Joe up by his ribs. Joe, to his credit, didn’t make a groan of pain, but his aura flared, and he gripped Pete back a little too tight.

            Patrick drove them all back to the venue fast enough, and the aura around Joe didn’t improve the whole time. Pete was grateful, not for the first time, that he and Joe shared a bus. While trying to remain nonchalant, he wrapped his arm around Joe and helped him walk back. There were no broken bones, but Joe was in pain, aching all over like he was recovering from a bad flu. Like the worst flu in the world.

            The second they were back on the bus, Pete shifted Joe’s weight, so he was almost carrying him. Joe made some sort of protest noise, embarrassment flickering in his aura, but Pete carried him across the room and laid him down on the couch.

            “Thought you said… showers first,” Joe groaned. “I’ve got to get the fucking river water off before the show.”  
            “You shower fast,” Pete said. “Lay still, okay?”

            He dashed to the kitchen, heated up tour bus food - Pop Tarts in the toaster and Hot Pockets in the microwave, and then went back to Joe while everything was cooking, or radiating, as it were.

            Before Joe could protest again, Pete had draped a throw blanket over him. Joe glared up at him, a half-assed glare.

            “I’m all gross,” he said.

            “Kinda, yeah,” Pete agreed. He unlaced Joe’s shoes, and it was really a testament to how much residual pain and exhaustion Joe felt still that he didn’t fight Pete off. Pete brought the food back over on paper napkins, grease spotting across them. He also gave Joe a glass of water, which Joe downed in one gulp.

            “It feels like someone took a sander to my nerves,” Joe admitted. His throat was hoarse, and Pete realized, with a very protective stab of anger, that it was hoarse from screaming. Pete felt angry in the big brother way he was always supposed to, but rarely did, with his own siblings. Like he wanted to go back and get the girl who did this and rip her limb from limb for hurting Joe.

            But that would do no good. What he could do was help Joe in the meantime. So he watched and forced Joe to eat at least one Pop Tart, and then tugged on the threads of exhaustion in Joe’s aura until he fell asleep, and the pain slowly drained from him.

            It wasn’t much, Pete thought, but he would help wherever he could. And in any case, it was remarkably easy to lull Joe to sleep.

 

***

 

            Things didn’t improve with Patrick all at once. And after everything went down with Chicago (Pete tried not to think his name bitterly, Patrick didn’t cheat on him, he didn’t) they still didn’t take a dramatic turn for the better. It improved, but not all at once. There were tiny steps. Patrick finally asking Pete to use a different shampoo, one that smelled different. Pete admitting that he wanted them to stay in LA for a while, both of them agreeing to work on communication.

            And, unfortunately, the whole “working on communication” thing came with a flash of guilt from Patrick. Pete didn’t want to ask. But hardly a day had passed before Patrick sat Pete down with a “we need to talk.”

            “That’s not a breakup line, by the way,” Patrick said quickly, slowing Pete’s heartbeat a little. “We just. We need to talk. Because, you know, communication and all and. I don’t want you to hear from someone else - or something else, or walk in on me or something, and. Ugh.”

            He was taut with anxiety, embarrassment. Pete had tried to stop being mean when people got embarrassed, as of recent events. He sat down with Patrick, and tried to project vibes of “open,” of “understanding.”

            “It’s… kind of complicated,” Patrick said. “It’s not like. It’s not like I’m, like I’m cutting myself or something.”

            Pete’s heartbeat picked up speed again, because that really wasn’t a good way to begin.

            “It’s just. Sometimes it itches, and I know, I know it’s in my head, but I can’t. Ripping them open again is the only thing that makes it stop,” Patrick said. His words came out in a rush, and Pete had to think about it, focus hard to understand what he meant.

            “What are you saying?” Pete asked, though he already thought he understood.

            “Sometimes I just can’t take it,” Patrick said, barely a whisper. “And I rip out my stitches. And that’s… that’s why it’s taken so long for the scratch and m- and the word on my back to heal.”

            “You’ve been-” Pete tried to be calm, to not freak out, for Patrick’s sake. But he was freaking out. And Patrick had been ripping out his stitches, exacerbating the wounds for… Pete couldn’t imagine for what. No wonder Patrick had said it wasn’t quite cutting. It must have been a similar sentiment. “ _Patrick_.”

            “I just,” Patrick took in a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “I wanted to tell you because- because-”

            “Because of communication,” Pete guessed.

            “Um, yes,” Patrick said. “But also because I did it again and I don’t know what I did wrong this time but it won’t stop bleeding.”

            “Oh,” Pete said. “Okay.”

            Pete, he was going to take this in stride. He was not going to freak out, and instead he was going to handle this calmly and he wasn’t going to cry or demand answers from Patrick.

            “Show me where,” Pete said, and Patrick lifted up his shirt (black, wet with blood) there at the kitchen table. The slash wasn’t so bad. Pete went up and got out the bandages from the bathroom and set to patching Patrick up, no big deal, like it was any other time.

            Pete held Patrick’s hand while he poured hydrogen peroxide over the wound, then rewrapped it with clean, sterile bandages. His back was worse. The big, angry scrawl of MINE with its sharp, jagged edges, clearly left for Pete, it wasn’t just oozing blood, it was trickling down like the opening sequence of Sweeney Todd.

            Pete dabbed the blood off first, and while he worked, he talked.

            “It isn’t too bad,” Pete said in a low voice, toweling over the wound, trying to be gentle but speedy at the same time.

            “It’s stupid,” Patrick said. “Or crazy. Or both.”

            “Well, I’m stupider and crazier than you are, so that’s not too bad either,” Pete said. He dabbed the letters with hydrogen peroxide and winced when Patrick winced. “How long have you-?”

            “Since the others started really healing. The pain went away, but then. Then it still didn’t feel better, if that makes sense? I don’t do it every time I change the bandages, just sometimes.”

            “Does Ferrum know?”

            “She suspects,” Patrick said. Pete rewrapped the word again, glad to see it out of sight, to not have to even think about it anymore. The other words were visible still, but the raw, angry “MINE” was something Pete thought he would always prefer under wraps.

            “I’m sorry,” Patrick said when Pete was done. “I know. I know now I’ve told you that I have to stop but I don’t know if it’s that simple.”

            “Just tell me,” Pete said. “I don’t know if I understand, not all the way, but I’ll try to. And I want to help. So, tell me, and I’ll be there. No matter what.”

            It was more serious than most of their declarations of love, and no one lightened it with a joke. Instead, Patrick kissed Pete very, very gently.

 

***

 

            Pete kind of thought that, after getting his stomach pumped of all the Ativan in it and spending a few days in a psych ward (not as scary as Pete thought it would be) that he would be _less_ crazy than he was before. But that wasn’t the case at all.

            He couldn’t fly. He couldn’t leave the country or take long car rides or touch his drink after leaving it alone for a minute because after almost dying, suddenly he was afraid of death. And death was around every corner. It was in food prepared where he couldn’t see it, in the ever present threat of Brandon Flowers, and always, always in the dark.

            What was he supposed to say? Hey guys, I know we can afford more tour busses and more space but I’d prefer not to sleep alone? He wasn’t a total jackass.

            But touring for Cork Tree started, and lo and behold… one tour bus. Pete turned to his band, confused.

            “I thought we said-”

            “Yeah, we did,” Joe said. “But we thought it might be better to stick together for a while.”

            Pete suspected, but he didn’t guess it out loud, scared to jinx it away.

            When he woke up screaming from a nightmare, Patrick was sitting up in his bunk with him before he could even flick on a light, whispering in his ear that it was okay, it was fine, everything was going to be fine. Pete thought he knew, but he still didn’t ask.

            When interviewers started asking stupid questions, being assholes, hounding him (which was every interview, because Pete was somehow just _so_ charismatic, what a fucking joke) Joe would troll them right back. Yawn loudly, or once, in an interview that never got aired, started flicking wads of paper at the douchebag in question.

            Pete knew.

            Andy went so far as to go out and buy meat from Walmart of all places when Pete was having a day, which was when Pete finally called them on their bullshit.

            “Guys,” he said. “I’m fine. You don’t have to-”

            “Treat you with kid gloves?” Andy asked, a little humor in his question. Pete glared.

            “We’re just trying to be here for you,” Patrick said. “You can talk to us about anything. No matter what, okay?”

            To Pete’s great surprise, he nodded. Around them, it sort of was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet y'all thought i would make it JUST peterick. I have self-control.

**Author's Note:**

> yeeeeah, so I started on the third and I think i'm gonna put one and two on the first and second days of november. oops. Hope you enjoyed!


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